The globe trotting Mousekewitz family find themselves now living in Manhattan again, their new home after New York, and the West apparently didn’t quite work out for them. This new movie is set directly after the short lived animated series on television, so this is kind of a new continuity rather than the one after “Fievel Goes West.” I assume to understand why the Mousekewitz’s are back in New York, you’d have to have seen the series, but the least they could have done was inject a few lines to help the audience catch up.
This new production is obviously of lower quality from the first two films, relying on the old chestnuts and clichés from the first two films. It’s a straight to video cash in and really doesn’t accomplish much except feel like an extended episode of the short lived series. It’s really too bad how much they’ve changed the characters for this sequel. The patriarch of the Mousekewitz’s is now this clumsy and whiny working man who is toiling away for a group of mouse businessmen intent on exploiting their workers. There’s also no Tiger the cat, whatsoever, which is a shame considering Tiger is really a great sidekick to Fievel.
Tiger is one of the most enthusiastic allies to the Mousekewitz journey to success and opportunity in America, and really has no role here. I won’t argue he’s an iconic sidekick like Genie from “Aladdin,” but he serves a fine purpose, and Dom DeLuise’s performance for both films is spirited and entertaining. If anything, “The Treasure of Manhattan Island” sports a bang up cast with Ron Perlman, David Carradine, Lacey Chabert, and a very young Thomas Dekker; even if Dekker doesn’t muster up the charms of original Fievel Phillip Glasser. To make up for the severe lack of Tiger, the movie is filled with a lot of bland and boring supporting characters.
This includes a Native American girl, and a street wise mouse urchin who follows Fievel where ever he goes. “Treasure of Manhattan Island” is a step down from Don Bluth’s original in quality both in animated and voice form. Some of the animation is so rigid and half assed, a massive scene of mice crowding around one of the villains just looks like a bunch of blobs moving in unison. I know it sounds like a nitpick, but when you see how much detail Bluth put in the first films with a scene of Fievel slipping and sliding around on a massive bar of soap and a protective bubble around him, this is such a jarring step back on quality.