Review of Oliver & Company (1988) by Jason V — 01 Jan 2011

It's telling, I think, that I remember plush Christmas ornaments based on this Disney animated film more than actually seeing the film in theaters. It's an unengaging, unmemorable "retelling" of Oliver Twist updated for the late 80s.

With voices and music by Billy Joel and Huey Lewis (among others), there is a stab at contemporary relevance which ultimately comes off as dated. It takes the movie 20 minutes to actually tell the audience what the plot is going to be about (far longer than a movie should wait) while the backgrounds all appear to be half-complete sketches of New York.

Yes, the latter is by design, though this lends the feeling the film is "half done." The film is littered with ads for Coke, Kodak and a host of other companies, as well as "smart" in-jokes for astute viewers (a Mickey Mouse watch, the Billy Joel character playing a piano with sunglasses).

The new computer generated animation in certain sequences doesn't seem all that "whiz bang" in 2011; moreover, there's a general roughness to the look of the picture. The two good aspects of Oliver and Company? It started the annual Disney animated picture and heralded the beginning of Disney's second golden age just two years later with The Little Mermaid.

Audiences would have to get through The Rescuers Down Under in 1990 first, though.