An American
Tail: Fievel Goes West (1991)
4/10
Starring the
voices of
Phillip Glasser
James Stewart
Erica Yohn
Cathy Cavadini
Nehemiah Persoff
Dom DeLuise
Directed by Phil
Nibbelink and Simon Wells
The second story
of An American Tail does not feel unique, even though there is a good upgrade noticeable
in the graphics. It seems like the mouse city seem to fall for the same old
trick looking for places where they do not have to deal with cats, well as they
find out in this movie no such place exists.
This movie was
meant to be entertaining and in some ways it tries, but it was entertainment
without substance, like someone eating dry bread with no water.
Even though the runtime
is just a few minutes shorter than the first movie, this movie feels very
short. I have seen it more than once before now, but seeing it again in 2020 I keep
wondering if this version I have is missing a whole chunk, or maybe it is the
fast pace of the movie that makes it feel as so.
This movie like its predecessor
is a musical, unlike An
American Tail (1986) which had more than one memorable song, this just
had one. Which was sang by Fievel’s sister Tanya sang in the saloon, titled The
Girl You Left Behind it is my second favorite from the series, the best
remains Somewhere
Out There from the first movie.
The movie plot
takes place a few years after the
first movie. Things are not rosy for the Mousekewitz and the town folks
and the cats are still troubling them.
We see an
aristocrat cat named Cat R. Waul come and persuade the rest that they should
travel to the west that over there the cats and mice are friendly towards one
another. Waul had other plans for the mice folks when they finally reach the west.
Before they ride
West we find out that Tiger’s girl Miss Kitty is also heading West. Tiger is
the vegetarian cat from the
first movie.
Tiger learns
that Fievel is also heading west and he goes after them.
As usual Fievel
goes exploring during the train ride and stumbles on the plans Waul has for the
mice. He is discovered and gets knocked off the train, which his parents
notice. Now Fievel is alone in the desert and needs to find his way back to his
family and also save them from the plans of Waul.
In the end this
movie was not as big a commercial or critical success as the first one. It is
not a worthy sequel to the first film, but regardless it made enough money to
inspire further direct-to-video sequels. There was also an animated children series
done.
Don Bluth was
not in charge of the production in this movie, he parted ways with Steven Spielberg
before the production of this movie. Spielberg’s animation production company
was the one responsible for this movie.
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