D52 Week 27: Oliver & Company!

Did you know? The Disney Renaissance is just around the corner! Next week, it officially kicks off with The Little Mermaid, and....well, okay, I have a confession to make, I've never actually seen it in its entirety, I don't think. I've heard the songs, and I remember the silly male anatomy-related controversies, but for one reason or another, I've never actually watched the movie itself. So, for now, I'll unquestioningly agree with what the animation scholars tell me. It must be good, right? I mean, the main character is a redhead, and they're some of my favourite people, sexually.

But first, Disney needed a kick in their pants to recommit to the movie musical format. And so, here, we have a smaller-scale effort in the musical department. Oliver & Company deserves credit for being, in a way, what ultimately served to point Disney towards one of their longest winning streaks in years. What else does it deserve credit for? Ummmmm......well, Young Joey Lawrence probably appreciated the work to bridge the gap between Gimme a Break and Blossom, maybe?

No, but really, it's hard to compliment this film on all that much. Do we really get the idea that Oliver actually has a terribly significant bond with Jenny? It doesn't strike me as any deeper than your typical "little girl adopts a kitty cat and thinks it's about the most adorable thing in the world for about a week or two before, yawn, it's the butler's turn to feed it and clean the litter box and stuff" situation, really. Yeah, she heads out alone to save him, but I figure that's less purehearted dedication, and more general little girl stupidity. And Oliver, well....it's nice living in a dwelling space that doesn't reek of Fagin urine, probably? Yeah, sure, Oliver and Jenny will do just fine together, but it's hardly a filmworthy bond that they've got going on, is what I'm saying.

And don't you feel just a little bit sorry for Dodger? Yeah, Billy Joel plays him as a pretty colossal douchebag, but still, he's a douchebag with a heart of gold-plated somethingorother. And isn't it honestly kind of sweet when he and Oliver snuggle up and sleep together, in the non-sexual sense? And then Oliver goes and runs off with his new primary school floozie, and he doesn't want to see his previous sleepin' buddy anymore! What an asshole! Dodger might not be the best friend that one could have, but he's certainly a better friend than someone who feeds their li'l baby kitten Cocoa Krispies when everyone knows that chocolate is very toxic to cats! I doubt little Jenny ever even loved Oliver, actually. She was clearly only just with him to knock him off, for the insurance, and the inheritance.

But, in all seriousness, is this not Disney's most ill-conceived bit of class commentary yet? In the end, the moral seems to be that rich people should continue living their rich person lives, and the homeless should keep living in the old abandoned buildings they delusionally call home. (You can still get over-the-air TV reception in there, after all!) And if maybe the two groups can hang out once in awhile, then that's nifty, I guess. But, generally speaking, poor people: stay poor. You don't need help. Screw you. Republicans must love this movie!

Though Fagin IS certainly shadier than the movie realises. How'd he get into debt in the first place? The money he borrowed doesn't seem to have been used to improve his life in any way. Did he blow it all on booze? Drugs? "Daniellae"? Motor-scooters? Disney-themed timepieces? And instead of even attempting to find a job, or even honourably Daniella-ing himself out to gentleman strolling down the docks - Fagin resorting to faggin', if you will, but you probably shouldn't - he....trains dogs to rob people for him. What a charming fellow! Do we really think that'll just stop now that his debt is paid off, with death? I don't.

(And, um, this is one of those movies where animals can talk to each other, but people can't hear it, right? They just hear standard animal noises? So....when Fagin's reading that bedtime story, and he calls on Francis to provide barking, can he hear him ahem-ing beforehand? That could go either way, really.)

And how could I not mention the sheer 80's-ness of it? It's not the first Disney film to be set in the present day of whatever year in the past it was created, but it's probably the first to feel so utterly of-its-time. Is that just because the 80's are still to recent for this to qualify as an interesting time capsule? If we give it time, will it eventually seem as quaint and normal as, say, 101 Dalmatians? I highly doubt it, because there are plenty of things from the 80's that I wouldn't bat an eye at, at all! But this.....this was just pandering, I guess, is the best way to put it. Pathetically pandering. Pandering even worse than Bing Crosby as Ichabod Crane was pandering. They....really should've showed some sort of restraint. Good lord.

Finally, in an attempt at recreating that Great Mouse Detective magic, this film, too, concludes in a wild CGI action setpiece. Except - and I mentioned this last week - it's nowhere as good as that movie's clock gears. We basically just have Sykes and Fagin's blocky automobiles in the subway, and a couple Doberman Pinschers thrown onto the electrified third rail, and then Sykes smashes into a train and is blown to smithereens. Fagin survives, because he was successfully able to take the Mushroom Bridge shortcut on his scooter. And Oliver also survives, despite being in Sykes car that, again, got hit by a fucking train, because he's a fuzzy critter, and as The Fox and the Hound already proved, fuzzy critters take "not very effective" damage from Train-elemental attacks. They'll still smart, yes, but they'll never manage a one-hit KO. But, really, that's it. CGI cars driving on subway tracks. It's a huuuuuuuge step down from last week's gripping CGI claustrophobia!

You'll notice I didn't even really bother comparing the film with its source material, Oliver Twist. That's both because I haven't read it in years, and also, because they really don't have all that much in common. They basically took the character names, the general theme of petty thievery, and Dickens' classic thesis on the philosophy of bebopilation and doowopulation*, and discarded the rest, so they could make everyone involved a lot more sympathetic. Even Sykes, who spends the entire film puffing on cigars (something only evil people do) and generally being ready and willing to kidnap and/or murder come what may, is several times more likeable than Book Sykes, in that at least he seems to genuinely like his Doberman Pinschers, I guess? It's a really depressing book. The movie is depressing, too, but in an entirely different way. In the way that it's just not very good, at all.

TERRIBLE AND UNNECESSARY DIRECT-TO-DVD DISNEY SEQUEL IDEA CONCEPT OF THE WEEK, OR MORE ACCURATELY, LAST WEEK, BECAUSE I'M ALWAYS A LITTLE LATE: In a similar things-that-will-probably-become-dated-rather-quickly vein, Oliver & Company II: Too Radical To Fail!!! starts with poor homeless Fagin finally realising how he can get out of debt forever: He's gonna start his own bank, which he cleverly decides to call Oliver & Company! So, obviously, he enlists Oliver as his advertising mascot, and the kitten's quick to accept, a decision that alienates him from the Foxworths. At first, it seems like all is going well, as Fagin is getting thousands of investors from all parts of the country. It looks like he's a smashing success! But, he's actually desperately trying to hide the fact that his bank is quickly going bankrupt from them. Dodger, jealous of Fagin's newfound closeness with Oliver, decides to let this fact slip to a high-powered ragamuffin Puli prosecutor - a prosecutor who's a Puli, I mean, not a prosecutor who specializes in cases involving Pulis - named Monks, played by Sean Kingston. Dodger immediately regrets his indiscretion, but regardless, Monks starts looking into the bank, and is shocked at all the investment fraud and junk that he's found! Perhaps Fagin isn't the upstanding citizen everyone had thought he was! Just when it seems all his lost, Jenny heartwarmingly convinces her parents that owning a pet involves supporting that pet's decisions even when you might disagree with them, and they realise that she's right. Her dad steps in to bail the bank out, paying off all of its outstanding debts with his massive wealth, and as such, Monks agrees to drop the investigation entirely, remixedly agreeing with Dodger's philosophy, "Why Should I Worry?"


*To answer a question I think you asked me at one point, Kevin, yes, he uses both.