Oliver & Company (1988)

Written by Vance Gerry, et al.
Directed by George Scribers

I mentioned, back during my review for Alice in Wonderland, that I first started acting at the age of 6, in a musical of Alice in Wonderland. Right after I finished that show, I began rehearsals for my next show, Oliver!, where I played an orphan and a boy on Fagin’s gang (and, allegedly was the understudy for the role of Oliver, but I still have no idea how true that actually was). So, like I did when I was in Alice, I watched Oliver! a lot during that time. A LOT.

I hate Oliver!.

Okay, I don’t HATE Oliver!. I’m just...tired of it. Over 25 years later, and I just get annoyed with it. For me, it’s overplayed (and, even better, I get to watch it again in 18 weeks as part of my Best Picture marathon. Yaaaaaaay (extra bonus fun fact: It actually took me 43 weeks to catch up to Oliver!. So much for that timeline)).

Oliver…

So, then there’s Disney’s version. I didn’t hate it, but I also wasn’t blown away by it. I think I liked it less than Great Mouse Detective, but it’s not the worst film of the canon.

First off. Disney. STOP WITH THE SAD ANIMALS RIGHT NOW. I’M GETTING REEEEEEEALLY SICK OF MY EMOTIONS BEING PLAYED WITH LIKE THIS. AND THEN, YOU THROW IN THE SAD LITTLE GIRL TOO I CAN’T EVEN RIGHT NOW.

…& Company

The film’s plot follows the source material pretty closely (from what I know; I’ve never actually read the book), so the pacing isn’t terrible. The characterization is a bit broad, but weirdly, it works more than it doesn’t. The animation style is...a style; everything (characters and backgrounds) looks messy, so I’m going to go with it’s “gritty”, not “messy”. Sure. CGI creeps in a little more here, and there are some really elegant camera moves that we haven’t seen by this point in a Disney film.

Billy Joel as Dodger performing “Why Should I Worry?”

The music here is, generally, better than Great Mouse Detective; the first song is forgettable, but the next two are toe-tapping, and a great segue, musically, into the broadway-style efforts of The Little Mermaid and the Renaissance era.

Overall, I dislike the film more because of my dislike of its source material, rather than its actual merits. Sometimes, it’s just hard to separate the two.

FINAL GRADE: B-