Oliver & Company

Yes, it is the 1988 Disney movie featuring various famous voices that I had only seen once... theatrically in 1988: 

A movie I saw theatrically in 1988 w/ Mom and my two younger sisters… but did not view again until last night. One reason why is that for whatever reason, Disney did not release the movie on home video until 1996. I was at the age of 15 then so I wasn’t interested. Needless to say, at the age of 7 when viewing this movie theatrically, I had no idea it was based on Oliver Twist. Heck, I am 44 (!) now and still haven’t read the Dickens story nor seen any other movie adaptation. Oh, and what a shock it was just minutes ago to discover that JAMES MANGOLD was one of the people credited w/ the script!

The movie… it does not rise above the level of “fine” as the titular Oliver is a kitten in New York City who becomes a stray and becomes part of a gang full of different dog breeds. When I was 7, who knows what I thought of the plotline revolving around little girl Jenny adopting Oliver and the dogs’ anger over him not wanting to be rescued, let alone the human Fagin character using Oliver in a hostage scheme (!) to get a ransom because he’s in debt to pistol-toting loan shark voiced by Robert Loggia (!!) and he’s a buffoon who only finds junk and he can’t repay the debt. My younger sisters were probably the little kid version of “WTF?”

Billy Joel’s song “Why Should I Worry?” was the only part of the film I remembered. The other tunes (featuring the likes of Huey Lewis, one of the Pointer Sisters, and Bette Midler) were quite the surprise. It does have a voice cast full of familiar names but a big sin of the film: the end credits rolled before the 70-minute mark. In this instance, the story and characters needed more time to be fleshed out. That includes Dodger the lead dog. The animation was best described as “serviceable.”

No regrets with this revisit; it makes for a nice story. Furthermore, Oliver & Company does make for a nice comparison with the movies in the Disney Renaissance, starting with the next one-The Little Mermaid. I’ve seen many of those, even if not since my childhood; they were all better. If you have childhood nostalgia for the movie-at least some of my mutuals do-that is great. As I don’t, instead my opinion is that the movie is fine as an adult—who knows what my nephews and niece would think of it or the wackiest plot elements.