Review of The Aristocats (1970) by Harry W — 04 Apr 2014

Aristocats was said to be not one of Disney's best films, but still provided charming entertainment so I figured it was worth a shot.

That was pretty much the exact quality of the film in the end. Aristocats is a flawed but entertaining Disney film.

The flaws are fairly simple. For one thing the plot is rather thin and tells a story that has been told many times about animals adventuring home and greedy people obsessed over a will and monetary gain. The story is a thin and generic predictable venture, and the fact that it is handled by Disney limits it even more.

Also, some of the animation is a little rough. While the quality of the animation is fairly good considering the date of the film, it is rather rough in its depiction of certain scenes, such as the character Madame Adelaide Bonfamille. Any scene with her is notable because the animation doesn't detail her well, and you can see a lot of rough pencil sketches which jump between frame and make the character detail rough. All the other characters don't have perfect movement due to the quantity of animation frames, but that's simply because the film is dated and had a small budget. But I'm just saying that considering today's standards, that could bother viewers.

But it really didn't bother me enough to detract from enjoying Aristocats. The film truly felt like a classical Disney film because it had the charm of one mixed with the characters, the comedy and the moral message.

The animation isn't Disney's finest, but it has plenty of colour and cutsie characters which makes Aristocats a visually appealing feature. And the scenery is really nice when the film takes place during the daytime because the colour palette is all very bright and and energetic.

The script has a few bumps along the way but overall it does the job on a fairly consistently funny note and even has the memorable lie "Ladies do not start fights but they can finish them." It also carries important moral messages about the value of animal lives which it covers in many different ways. And it has a lot of Disney style characters written in who are all silly in their own ways as well as charming and funny. The characters in Aristocats are all a friendly bunch who benefit from a fine cast of voice actors, particularly the efforts of Liz English in the role of one of the most popular characters Marie, as well as the effort of legendary Disney voice actor Phil Harris as Thomas O'Malley. The characters in Aristocats are a loveable bunch, and many people should find themselves loving the little furry fellas as they take a journey.

And while most of the songs don't exactly scale the height of Disney's classics, there are some catchy tunes in Atistocats with the highlight of it all being "Everybody wants to be a cat". While the songs aren't the most intelligently written, the music is enjoyable and somewhat memorable.

Really, Wolfgang Reitherman manage to tie everything together as the director of Aristocats. And while he leaves certain ends rather loose, he ensures that Aristocats has the childish charm to appeal to its young audiences as well as some, if not enough of its adult viewers.

So Aristocats is a standards Disney fair. It doesn't have the most original story or most refreshing animation, but the appeal of its colour, it's characters and cutsie charm should leave most viewers satisfied.