Orphaned kitten Oliver (voiced by Joey Lawrence) stands alongside his gang of canine accomplices. That this is the most interesting frame with the fuller titular cast speaks volumes (Disney).
The output of Walt Disney Animation Studios–currently totaling 54 full-length films–has been cherished by audiences young and old for almost 80 years. In this weekly online feature, arts and entertainment editor Nathan Tucker will review and rank each of them.
Walking out of Oliver and Company, one might very well feel they had been ripped off by the titular thieves. The film is, in a word, slight: my first question as the credits rolled was “is that really it?”
Not that Oliver and Company isn’t a fine way to spend a lazy afternoon. It absolutely is. The way the film maps the plot and characters of Dickens’ Oliver Twist (or, rather, of the musical Oliver!) to its canine-centered NYC is clever. The voice acting is not at all grating, even if Cheech Marin’s yappy chihuahua gets far too much screen time. Most of all, it is refreshing to watch a full-fledged Disney Musical again, even if the dad-pop shuffle of “Why Should I Worry” is the only number catchy enough to be remembered afterwards.
The heavily qualified list above sums up any appeal Oliver and Company might have. It is not quite enough. The plot spends a good half of its time going through clearly obligatory sequences. The feline protagonist is ball of bland naivety that gets lost in between the supporting cast; the film should have been called Company and Oliver. That supporting cast is populated exclusively by static characters. None of these characters change or even display a personality beyond a superficial set of tics. There are moments, brief moments, where the screenplay seems to be attempting a heartwarming moral involving its “rad” take on the Artful Dodger realizing that he may not be the center of the world. But of course, this is kiboshed by a marketing campaign that relied on Dodger being ‘tude incarnate (also: any film casting Billy Joel as its “hip” character has a severely outdated definition of cool, even for 1988).
The animation is yet another regression: the main characters still look lifeless and sketchy, the background cast looks even worse. The backdrops attempt a loose, impressionistic style that works in the opening credits and literally nowhere else. After The Black Cauldron, it might be the ugliest Disney film on a purely aesthetic level.
Those qualifications should not deter anyone from watching Oliver and Company: after all, it is enjoyable enough. But they should make make one very aware that “Oliver Twist with dogs” is not the masterpiece its source material might suggest.
The List:
Bambi
Sleeping Beauty
The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh
Lady and the Tramp
The Jungle Book
Alice in Wonderland
Fantasia
Pinocchio
The Great Mouse Detective
Robin Hood
The Rescuers
One Hundred and One Dalmatians
Peter Pan
The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad
Cinderella
Dumbo
Oliver and Company
The Aristocats
The Fox and the Hound
The Sword in the Stone
Melody Time
Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs
Fun and Fancy Free
Saludos Amigos
Make Mine Music
The Black Cauldron
The Three Caballeros