Here is a nice little Disney film that is perhaps a little bit underrated and perhaps a little bit quick. It's a short movie that is suitable for all members of a family, containing enough peril and frightening images to keep it from being a film for just the little kiddies. And yet it isn't too terrifying or unsuitable for the aforementioned children. "Oliver & Company" does rush through pretty quickly. The plot already becomes clear and right to the main point pretty early on in the film. However, it is not without substance or creativity and has some very delightful or in the case of the three villains, dislikable characters. The characters are loosely based off the characters from a Charles Dickens novel called "Oliver Twist". I'm not that familiar with it, but I do recognize Dodger as a representation of the Artful Dodger, Sykes from his novel counterpart, and so on and so forth. But based on the one film version of "Oliver Twist" I've seen, this film is quite different once you get past a few characters and their similar traits.
The characters are all well-realized in terms of both animation and the voice talents put behind them. Oliver, the kitten, was voiced by a child about eight years of age, and is therefore the animated cat is very convincing at being both cute and youthful at the same time. Dodger is the artful, cool guy who knows the way things go and never loses his temper. And there's the rest of his gang who follow his commands and advice. They are all under ownership of a poor man named Fagin who lives in a rickety old boat. Fagin is one the most likable of the characters because of his comic relief and how things never seem to go his way. There was one animation flaw I noticed with this character. Sometimes his nose would be pink, and other times flesh-colored without any indication of it changing colors. There are three villains, a mobster-like guy called Sykes and his two dobermans, Roscoe and Desoto. The actor who voiced Sykes provided a chilling, cold, and almost purring kind of voice that made Sykes seem really sadistic. He's not the most frightening Disney villain, probably because of his limited screen time and somewhat underdevelopment. I did like the dobermans and thought they were very well-done as villainous characters because they had little dialogue. It made them less sympathetic since they mostly just growled, barked, and snarled rather than talking. And yet, they had enough lines to make them more like the rest of the characters.
Since I am not the biggest fan of Disney movies, I can't really make a big long review of this, since I'm just recently beginning to start watching these old, animated shows again. But I'll just summarize this review up by saying that "Oliver & Company" is, for me anyway, an okay animated family movie. It's not the best I've seen, not the worst, but worthy of seven stars out of ten.
The characters are all well-realized in terms of both animation and the voice talents put behind them. Oliver, the kitten, was voiced by a child about eight years of age, and is therefore the animated cat is very convincing at being both cute and youthful at the same time. Dodger is the artful, cool guy who knows the way things go and never loses his temper. And there's the rest of his gang who follow his commands and advice. They are all under ownership of a poor man named Fagin who lives in a rickety old boat. Fagin is one the most likable of the characters because of his comic relief and how things never seem to go his way. There was one animation flaw I noticed with this character. Sometimes his nose would be pink, and other times flesh-colored without any indication of it changing colors. There are three villains, a mobster-like guy called Sykes and his two dobermans, Roscoe and Desoto. The actor who voiced Sykes provided a chilling, cold, and almost purring kind of voice that made Sykes seem really sadistic. He's not the most frightening Disney villain, probably because of his limited screen time and somewhat underdevelopment. I did like the dobermans and thought they were very well-done as villainous characters because they had little dialogue. It made them less sympathetic since they mostly just growled, barked, and snarled rather than talking. And yet, they had enough lines to make them more like the rest of the characters.
Since I am not the biggest fan of Disney movies, I can't really make a big long review of this, since I'm just recently beginning to start watching these old, animated shows again. But I'll just summarize this review up by saying that "Oliver & Company" is, for me anyway, an okay animated family movie. It's not the best I've seen, not the worst, but worthy of seven stars out of ten.