Visually gorgeous and interesting
Prince Vladimir has been criticised for taking liberties with history, ideological pandering and being unfair to religion. That personally didn't come across as a problem, Prince Vladimir does take liberties with the truth but does so in an intelligent and entertaining way- like Don Bluth's Anastasia- instead of playing it for laughs and ripping off blatantly(like The Magic Voyage and the Titanic animated movies did). As for the pandering and religion stuff, they come across as somewhat nit-picky in comparison and I'm not going to go down that route as I'm not an expert in this regard. Prince Vladimir came across really well and deserves to be judged on its own. The animation is gorgeous with a lot of detail, beautiful colours and you can tell that a lot of care and effort went into it. The music is both rousing and heartfelt, with a distinctive Russian feel, whether folk-song/tale or patriotic. The dialogue is intelligent and interesting, is not restrained or disturbing, is not too complicated and not too dumbed down either and manages to entertain and teach. The story draws you right in, is constantly interesting and well paced and may give you the incentive to read up on the subject matter afterwards. That is fascinating also though there may be a few whose enjoyment of the film may be tainted after reading what really happened. The characters, while archetypes in a way(especially the villainous pagan priest), are still engaging, in particular the prince of the title is a flawed character who positively matures and changes. The voice acting is dynamic and noble, if sometimes with a theatrical edge that is hardly inappropriate. All in all, intelligent, fascinating and a wonder visually. 10/10 Bethany Cox
- TheLittleSongbird
- 17 de jul. de 2013