Oliver and Company - 20th Anniversary
Edition
Oliver and Company
came along during a strange time for Disney's legendary animation division.
The cartoons were still coming out regularly enough, however there was a
slapdash quality - the animations were not quite up to the studio's
legendary standards. That would change a mere year later when The
Little Mermaid came out, leading to a hot streak of classics including
Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin and The Lion King.
Oliver and Company
was at the tail end of the down period - and in the finished product you can
see both the problems which were tying Disney cartoons down and the enormous
steps that the studio was taking to improve its rep. Looking back
twenty years later, Oliver and Company is a better film than it ever
really got credit for, but it is still a far cry from the highs which would
come out of the Pen and Ink Building very soon afterwards.
On the plus side, there was
obviously a lot of time and talent spent on the movie. Like the
classics that were coming along (and a lot of past favorites), it was a
newfangled loose variation of a classic story - in this case Charles
Dickens' novel Oliver Twist. That is if you can picture Oliver
as a cute kitten, Bill Sykes as a local mobster and The Artful Dodger as a
streetwise mutt.
The lyrics were provided
mostly by Howard Ashman - who would go on to do the music for Mermaid,
Beauty and Aladdin before dying way too young. Some of
the songs were performed by the then-huge Billy Joel - who also voiced the
Artful Dodger - and the theme song was done by a similarly red-hot Huey
Lewis. Barry Manilow, Bette Midler and Ruth Pointer (of the Pointer
Sisters) all participated in the music, as well. The music is mostly
good, but it does have a strong late-80s sound that makes it a little dated.
There are no timeless tunes like "A Whole New World" or "Kiss the Girl"
here.
Some real serious actors
were pulled in to do the voices, including Joel, then-child star Joey
Lawrence as Oliver, Dom DeLuise, Cheech Marin, Richard Mulligan, Sheryl Lee
Ralph and Robert Loggia.
Also, one of the
screenwriters was James Mangold - who would go on to be known as the
writer/director of such esteemed films as Walk the Line, 3:10 to Yuma,
Cop Land and Girl, Interrupted.
On the negative side, the
animation is shaky - to be charitable. The main character is adorable
and most of the dogs are cute, too, but the human characters are rather
poorly imagined. The New York City backgrounds are particularly
sketchy, not capturing the magic or majesty of the city and backgrounds - in
the way that would quickly become once again the standard for the Disney
animators. The occasional drawings of the World Trade Center - even if
not drawn all that well - still bring a lump in the throat, though for a
tragic reason that has nothing to do with the film. Still, too much of this
appears like it was done on the cheap - and it shows.
However the basic storyline
is a strong one - orphan kitty lost in the big city falls in with a rough
and tumble group of dog street thieves and eventually finds the love of a
rich and fabulous family. The voice work is very good, the writing is
relatively interesting... and did I mention how cute the little cat at the
heart of the
story was? I know I did, but it bears repeating. Adorable, just
adorable.
Oliver and Company
is certainly not on a level of the Disney classics, but as a kid's film it's
well worth the time.
Jay S. Jacobs
Copyright ©2009 PopEntertainment.com.
All rights reserved. Posted: January 23, 2009.
