Curiously endearing Disney animated feature inspired by "Oliver Twist", transposing the Dickensian favorite fairly successfully to a modern-day New York setting - with the villainous Bill Sykes as a mobster (flanked by a couple of vicious mastiffs). Stylistically, it lies somewhere between LADY AND THE TRAMP (1955) and the adult-oriented films of Ralph Bakshi (without the sex and violence, naturally); as such, it stands oddly alongside the studio's usual fare from this rather lame era - and its vitality can now be seen to have foreshadowed the renaissance in quality (and critical appraisal) which they witnessed soon after, beginning with THE LITTLE MERMAID (1989). The anthropomorphic characters (which generally swamp the humans - Fagin is very much a good guy here, if still pitiful) are quite nicely fitted to class stereotypes: hence, we get a Hispanic chihauha (with an eye for the ladies) and a posh bulldog, among others, while Dodger is basically an updated version of Tramp and Oliver himself a cute but very brave kitten. The familiar and involved plot is all but jettisoned (especially in its second half) in favor of boisterous action and character comedy, with a bouncy score and rapid pace to match. In the end, it proved surprisingly good - and, at just 74 minutes, short enough not to overstay its welcome.

I know it sounds weird because this movie was made when I was a child, you'd think I would've seen it at an earlier age. But I never did and my friend had the movie, I was curious and wondering why I never had the chance to see it. But I'm glad that I just got to see this movie, it was so much fun and I just missed the old time animation. It had great music by the awesome Billy Joel and the animals were just so adorable.

Basically, Oliver is an orphan kitten the big city of New York and meets a smooth street smart dog, Dodger. When Oliver follows Dodger to his layer of other dogs who are led by a homeless man, Fagin, they decide to keep Oliver. But when Oliver is learning the street smarts, a little girl sees him and takes him home where he gets a nice loving place to stay, not to mention extremely wealthy. But the guys want him back and kidnap him to pay back the mean Mr. Sykes.

I thought this was a great introduction of Charles Dicken's immortal classic for the kids. Not to mention that it was clever and witty, the music is memorable and there are some very funny moments that both kids and adults could get a kick out of. Believe me, this movie is good fun, but I'm still trying to find out why I didn't see it sooner.

8/10

When "Oliver & Company" began, it was quickly obvious that it was the most poorly animated full-length film that Disney produced. Oddly, I saw a lot of reviews giving it 10s....which I cannot understand considering that the artwork is WORSE than many television cartoons...and I am not exaggerating. It represents the absolute nadir in Disney animation....and by comparison, "The Black Cauldron" is a classic when it comes to the art. To me, it looks like Disney wasn't even trying and simply thought that parents would take their kids to ANYTHING provided it bore the Disney name. It's really hard to imagine that only a year later Disney would bring us the exquisite "Little Mermaid" and the two films look as if they came from different studios!

In addition to the horrid artwork, the voices and music often seem out of place. A few of the voice actors (such as Joey Lawrence and Cheech Marin) sounded all wrong for animation (such as Billy Joel) and the songs sounded more appropriate for an MTV video of the late 80s instead of being for a kids movie.

So, despite being an artistic mess, is the film and story worth seeing? Perhaps...if you're looking for a version of "Oliver Twist" but starring dogs and people. My recommendation is that you do what I did....watch EVERY Disney full-length animated film and then, if you need more, give "Oliver & Company" a try...understanding you are seeing their very worst.

By the way, I think the reason this film received quite a few 9s and 10s is simply that folks LOVE Disney or saw the film as children and loved it. And, while I do love Disney animation, I cannot in good conscience recommend a film that Disney didn't even bother trying to make into a good film....and rival studios, such as Don Bluth, were making so much better cartoons at the time. Boring, cheap and a sad, sad film to watch because of it's lack of quality.

By the way, I saw this movie the same day I watched "Home on the Range". Both are among the very worst Disney animated films but I preferred "Home on the Range" as it wasn't quite as awful as "Oliver & Company". The animation to "Home on the Range" was poor but not nearly as talentless as that you'll see in "Oliver & Company".