Review of The Aristocats (1970) by Mac J — 03 Jul 2013

Walt Disney's death in 1966 was a major blow to the Disney studio. Not only was Walt a great innovator and leader, but he paved the way for great animated classics not only for Disney, but definitely influenced possibly about every animation studio, from Pixar, DreamWorks, and Studio Ghibli. After Disney's financial success of The Jungle Book, mostly due to it being Walt's last cartoon, the Disney studio spent the next two decades inside what I call a Dark Age, releasing films that were considered disappointments to many, and leading to the near-extinction of animation. Had it not been for The Little Mermaid, then Disney probably would have left the business in the late 80's. Disney's first animated film in their Dark Age was The Aristocats.

In The Aristocats, which was the final Disney film to have approval from Walt, we meet a wealthy, rich, French woman who owns a family of cats, led by Duchess, who has three kittens, Marie, Berlioz, and Toulouse. When their owner decides to leave her fortune to them when she dies, Edgar, the butler, gets jealous, wanting his hands on the fortune himself. He abducts the cats and intends to kill them off, but fate intervenes (in this case, two country dogs) and the cats are left abandoned in the French countryside. They meet Thomas O'Malley, an alley cats who decides to help them return home.

How does The Aristocats hold up after a great legacy of films made by the late, great Walt Disney. Well, for starters, the animation is a huge highlight, with many scenes looking like beautiful paintings. The music and songs by the Sherman Brothers are also standouts, especially the super jazzy, "Everybody Wants to Be a Cat.".

With that being said, there's a lot of issues with this film. First off, the story had been done before. The kidnapping part had been taken in 101 Dalmatians and the part about the rich cat meeting a poor cat is taken from Lady and the Tramp. Those two films are pure Disney classics. The Aristocats, is not up there, due to it's copied story.

Also, I didn't care at all about the main characters. When Walt made 101 Dalmatians, you rooted and cared for the puppies who wanted to return home. These cats, particularly the kittens, are so annoying you would want to puke in front of Walt's ghost. Walt would probably roll in his grave for the poor development of these cats. While I enjoyed Phil Harris playing an alley cat (this is part two of the Phil Harris trilogy, remember?), compared to Baloo the bear in The Jungle Book, this cat's lame.

The weird thing is that the supporting characters are the characters I enjoyed more. We have Roquefort the mouse, voiced by Sterling Holloway, who's fond of the kittens, two British geese and their drunk uncle Waldo, who's been "marinated" in white whine (don't ask), Scat Cat and his gang of swinging alley cats, and the best characters in the whole film, the two country dogs, voiced by Pat Buttram and George Lindsay (you know, Haney and Goober), who always chase the butler in the motorcycle. That subplot was a million gazillion times better than the main plot. Also, the villain, Edgar the butler, has some fun comic relief as well.

Well, to put it straight, The Aristocats is a mixed bag. There's fun songs, a funny villain, and some hilarious country dogs, but was lacing in terms of an original story and cats to care about, with the exception of Scat Cat. This was not a good film to begin a new era on.