Fox's first foray into the traditional animation fray is an old-fashioned, historically dubious musical that has it's fun moments, but is, in the end utterly forgettable. They get a great vocal cast to bring to life this oft-told tale of the Princess Anastasia, rumored to have survived the brutal slaying of the Russian royal family during the Revolution. This being a film for children, the aspects of revolt and bloodshed are kept to a minimum, but the basis for the story is taken from real life. It greatly diverges from there, managing to entertain without ever truly engaging.

After barely escaping the revolution, Anastasia reemerges 10 years later as an orphan named Anya with no memory of her past life. Dimitri (Cusack), once a kitchen boy in the palace, finds her and tries to turn her remarkable likeness to the missing Princess into financial gain for him and his partner. Anya, on a desperate search to reunite with her family, is the perfect sucker for his plans. He convinces her that she's the Princess Anastasia and begs her to accompany him to Paris to prove it to the Empress, her grandmother.

What he doesn't realize is that if she is truly the rightful heir, she has powerful enemies that want to ensure she never reaches her destination. The spirit of Rasputin (Lloyd), once the family's physician, is bent on revenge for his destruction and will stop at nothing to finally get rid of Anastasia. Of course, their narrow escapes from death only serve to bring the couple closer together. Dimitri begins to have doubts about his plan and starts to truly believe that he's actually found the real princess. In the end, the princess proves to be even more resilient than anyone gave her credit for. She not only reunites with her family, she finally finds true happiness with the man of her dreams.