AC23: Random Movie Review - Oliver & Company

From Sherlock Holmes to Oliver Twist, it looks like Disney are all over those classic British stories. So this came out the same day as Universal's The Land Before Time and managed to beat this film in more ways than one. I guess Disney at the time just could not compete with their former employee Don Bluth and the animation here is like a typical New York style of art. Nevertheless, its history now and the film has managed to get a cult following of sorts in more recent years thanks mainly to the music. So let's have a look at it:

So anyone who knows the Oliver Twist story well will be very familiar with this film. Except the story is set in then present day New York and the main characters are mostly animals with at least a few human characters. So a box that contains kittens attracts the attention of the people of New York as each passerby adopts the kittens. All except for young Oliver (voiced by Joey Lawrence) who strolls through the streets looking for an owner. That is until he meets Dodger (a mongrel and terrier mix breed of dog voiced by singing legend Billy Joel) who helps him steal food from a hot dog vendor and allows Oliver into his pack of animals owned by a pickpocket named Fagin (voiced by Dom DeLuise) who is in debt with a shipyard agent and loan shark called Bill Sykes (voiced by Robert Loggia). Sykes gives him the ultimatum of paying him back within three days or face a series of violence. During the film, Oliver becomes conflicted as a little girl takes him in and must choose between the right thing or the thing he wants more than anything.

With great music and a familiar story, I would have expected this film to do well. But it didn't do as well as people thought most likely due to it being almost the exact same story as the original book but with talking animals. Its an OK film which as I said has good music and good artistry. Just didn't do much that was original with the story and talking animals and a then present day New York setting being nothing all that new. 7/10