Oliver and Company (1988)

Oliver and Company (1988)

I’ll say this right now, I don’t like Oliver Twist. It has a couple of cool things in it, namely Fagin and Bill Sikes, but the rest of it is a real bore to me. With that said, Oliver and Company often gets flak for being a rather lazy and slipshod adaptation of Oliver Twist, which, admittedly, it is, but perhaps this bothers me a little less considering I have such little interest in the original and its myriad of other adaptations, or in whether or not they did it better. Oliver and Company is not a great movie, but I think it removes enough of the boring aspects from Oliver Twist and replaces them with some fun and colourful parts – even if they are a little shallow – to still be a fun ride.

The animation is good, but not great, it’s on a similar kind of level to The Great Mouse Detective but not quite as detailed; as is often the case, a couple characters are better animated than the rest of the cast – Fagin is very exaggerated and extreme with his movements, allowing the animators to play around a lot with the way he poses and interacts with things, while Sikes is the opposite, being very slow and methodical with his movements, yet still leaving a powerful impression; the animators definitely have the most fun with these two. Some of the animals are very well animated too, Dodger and Georgette in particular, with Dodger’s loose and slippery animation matching his relaxed and carefree attitude and Georgette’s sudden and jerking movements matching her uptight and somewhat unhinged mentality. The film does stumble when it comes to computer animation, though, which it uses extensively to animate vehicles in open and brightly lit scenes, making it much harder to hide than in the dark, claustrophobic clock tower scenes in The Great Mouse Detective; unfortunately, the technology just isn’t there yet, leaving the computer animation looking awkward and dated, often resembling the characters from the Money for Nothing video more than real cars. The character designs are actually really interesting, they look quite different from most other Disney characters, being rather more stylised and exaggerated – some characters, such as Fagin and many of the background characters are actually quite dirty and visually unappealing in their designs; though there are still generic Disney designs in Oliver and Jenny, for the most part the cast looks a little different here, which is nice to see. The backgrounds are very sketchy and unrefined, resembling those from One Hundred and One Dalmatians, but I think this fits the modern, 80’s New York vibe the film is trying to create; all in all, the visual style of the film is pretty solid, despite a few hiccups with the computer animation.

The plot is very familiar, being based on a classic novel that we’ve seen adapted many times before, though obviously the film deviates heavily from the original story, in traditional Disney fashion. That said, I think Oliver and Company actually kind of benefits from being such a stripped down version of Oliver Twist, as it means it can cut out a lot of the boring parts of the story while still keeping the general idea, as well as some of the better parts – while Fagin’s character is very diluted and made a lot more sympathetic and family friendly, Sikes is still pretty much just as monstrous and cruel, even though some of his nastier actions (namely, beating a woman to death and trying to do the same to his dog) are missing, it is a kid’s movie, after all. This means the film is paced reasonably well, it jumps from scene to scene, with something new always going on, never getting bogged down by story or wasting time with pointless scenes, it manages to stay entertaining all the way through. Still, this fast pace does mean that the film never really settles on one particular central plot, you’d think the focus would be the same as the original novel – Oliver’s plight and his rise from rags to riches –and it kind of is, but he as a character is so out of focus that it’s kind of hard to view the film as his story. Really, it’s not so much “Oliver” but more the “and company” that is the focus of the film, as it also the dog’s story, their quest to save Oliver and Fagin, it’s Fagin’s story, his attempts to save himself from Sikes as well as redeem himself for being a thief and a cheat, Georgette’s in her attempts to initially get rid of and eventually, accept Oliver and his friends and Jenny’s and her quest to rescue Oliver and her dreams of being reunited with her family. There are all sorts of storylines going on at the same time and the film never really settles on one and while this does stop things from ever getting too stagnant, it also prevents the film from really having a sense of purpose, it’s just too scattered and fragmented.

The film has quite a big cast of characters, most of which get at least a decent degree of focus and screen time, with only a couple (Rita and Einstein) falling by the wayside. This is good, because Oliver has got to be one of the most boring and least developed protagonists in any Disney movie, he has no personality beyond being sweet and innocent, he barely talks or does anything at all, he just gets passed around from character to character and situation to situation, he is completely passive and just there to watch the other characters do their thing. Thankfully, like I said before, the focus is much more on the “and company” part of the title, meaning that the large cast of colourful characters take centre stage and dominate the film over Oliver – Fagin’s gang of dogs are a very generic collection of stereotypes, they’re all likeable, but also very familiar. Francis is overly posh and sophisticated, Einstein is dumb but loyal, Rita is... just the girl, she really doesn’t get much time at all. Tito gets a bit more time and attention, he is scrappy, cocky and excitable, acting as the primary comic relief; he’s quite fun to watch at times, but by the end of the film his yippy attitude gets a bit old – there’s only so much Cheech Marin you can take and that’s all the character really is. Georgette also gets a decent amount of attention, she is enjoyably mean and snobbish and her extreme narcissism can be quite funny at times, she kind of reminds me of Angelica from Rugrats, though she does get nicer over the course of the film. As the leader of the group, Dodger appropriately gets the most time and rightly so, as he’s definitely the best member of the gang; he’s cool, witty, laid-back and just fun. Though a pretty shameful rehash of the “cool, streetwise drifter” character seen in Tramp, O’ Malley, Baloo and so on, Dodger is cool enough that you can give him a break; though you can also definitely tell that Billy Joel is voicing Dodger, as he never really transcends his role as just a singer in a recording booth, his exaggerated, “wise-guy” New York accent is so goofy you can’t help but enjoy it.

The human characters aren’t quite as good – Fagin is mostly just comic relief, he’s goofy and clumsy and pathetic, but I don’t really find him very funny or entertaining, personally, he’s just a little too sad. Jenny is a generic Disney kid, she’s nice and cute and she has a sympathetic backstory, but as usual, she is also boring; still, she’s not the focus of the movie and is not overly cutesy like Penny from The Rescuers or Michael from Peter Pan, so she’s not so bad. Winston isn’t in much of the film, but he’s generally likeable, he’s a little bumbling, but not nearly as much as Edgar from The Aristocats and he has some interesting quirks, like being really into wrestling, that set him apart from other goofy butler character types that have come before him. The best of the human characters is the villain, Sikes, who is dripping with villainous charisma; I really like this guy, he’s so slimy, but in a legitimately frightening way – Sikes is much more of a realistic Disney villain than we’re used to, he’s a ruthless loan shark with a sadistic streak, somebody you could very easily run into in real life, certainly in 1980’s New York. Sikes is definitely exaggerated and extreme, but he’s not really cartoonish and unrealistic and it’s this sense of realism that makes Sikes so threatening and dangerous, he’s not the most memorable or colourful Disney villain, no, but again, it makes sense for the kind of villain he is, I think he’s quite an underrated member of Disney’s rogues gallery; plus, he has an insanely violent death, driving straight into a speeding train and EXPLODING it’s crazy.

Perhaps the most notable aspect of Oliver and Company is the fact that, for the first time in years, it’s actually a legitimate musical, rather than just having a bunch of ill-fitting songs played over the action, it has the characters actually sing and get involved in musical numbers and honestly, most of them are quite good. The opening song, “Once Upon a Time in New York City” is a bit goofy, it sounds more like the opening to Cheers or something than the intro to a musical, it’s definitely very 80’s and very cheesy, but that kind of adds to its charm, it’s a nice song. “Streets of Gold” is a good, soul-infused kind of song, but is unfortunately cut very short, we really don’t get to hear much of it. “Good Company” is a sweet, but very basic little song, both in terms of the music and the lyrics; it’s nice but really doesn’t have much going on. “Perfect isn’t Easy” is the most traditional musical number of the bunch and appropriately so, as it seems to act as kind of a parody of classic Disney musical numbers such as “Whistle While You Work” or “The Work Song”, with images such as little blue birds helping Georgette get dressed, while she brushes them aside and barely seems to notice they exist. The music is also pretty catchy and though the lyrics kind of emanate this feeling of thinking they’re wittier than they are, they are still rather well written; it’s a good song and probably the closest to a real musical number Disney had done in years, by this point. But the best of the songs as well as the best part of the entire movie is “Why Should I Worry”, which Billy Joel belts out in his classic style, it’s fun, super high energy and catchy as all hell; it’s not really a musical number so much as just a Billy Joel song sung by a dog version of Billy Joel but whatever it’s great, the whole thing is great, including the animation, it’s just a really, really good sequence. While some of the songs are a bit basic and Disney haven’t quite gotten back on track in terms of creating classic-style musicals, Oliver and Company was the closest they’d gotten in years and it’s got enough good songs to work.

I find it kind of difficult to sum up how I feel about Oliver and Company, while I don’t think it’s nearly as bad as a lot of people seem too, I do recognise that it’s not really that great either and while I do enjoy it quite a lot, it is so lacking in so many areas that I hesitate to really call it all that good. I think Oliver and Company is a film with a lot of personality, but not much heart, if that makes any sense; it has a unique style and attitude and some interesting character designs and ideas that no other Disney film so really has, but once you look beneath that fresh and intriguing surface, you’ll find there’s not much lying underneath – the story is too fragmented and the characters too shallow, despite a few stand outs. Oliver and Company is not much more than a kid’s movie, lacking in any real creativity, depth or thought, but I still think it’s a good kids movie, with some enjoyable characters, good animation and fun songs, even if it’s not much else.

6.5/10