DVD Review: Oliver and Company

Disney has released a 20th Anniversary edition of Oliver and Company on DVD this week. The cartoon features the voices of Better Midler, Joey Lawrence, Billy Joel, Cheech Marin, Richard Mulligan, Roscoe Lee Browne, Sheryl Lee Ralph, Dom Delouise, and Robert Loggia.

Oliver and Company is a retelling of Oliver Twist about an orphaned kitten who joins a gang of dogs that commit petty crimes in New York City to help their owner pay off a debt to the villainous Sykes.

Now, I'm sure I must have seen this movie when I was a kid but I really didn't remember any of it. The characters were familiar but the story and everything else about it was not.


That said, I did enjoy the film. It didn't seem like a Disney movie to me. It was more reminiscent of the old Don Bluth cartoons. Mainly because of the violence at the end. It was rather graphic for a Disney cartoon. I won't go into details but it is rather gruesome for Disney.

The voice acting is great and the character design fantastic. The animals are extremely cute. It's a funny movie with a few touching moments and is certain to give the kids a great time watching.


My only complaint is the music. I really did not enjoy the songs in this. Thankfully, there are only a few so it wasn't too much to deal with. They just weren't enjoyable. You expect music in a Disney film to be timeless. The songs in this movie aren't.

Besides the music, I really don't have anything else negative about the movie. I really enjoyed it. I laughed, I teared (don't tell anyone) I smiled, and I wanted an Oliver and a Dodger of my own.


The DVD is full of special features including sing alongs, Oliver's Big City Challenge game, The Making of Oliver and Company, and a couple classic Disney toons starring Pluto.

The film has been digitally mastered for the 20th anniversary and it looks pretty great. Like I said before it looks more like a Don Bluth cartoon.

Oliver and Company is worth a revisit and definitely worth introducing to the new generation of animation and Disney fans.

Oliver and Company is available now on DVD.