Aristocats

The Aristocats is the first of three things. It marks the beginning of a darker period in Disney's years, it's the first film done without Walt (whom had passed away during early development), and it is the first film to heavily feature felines. Yet it's also not as memorable as many other Disney classics.

The thing about Aristocats, is that while it is a lot of fun there's just not anything that's big enough to make it stand out from all of the other talking animal films. The animation looks nice, and thankfully avoids the cel problems that most of the upcoming films ran into, and the character designs are pleasing. The two character designs that I enjoyed the most were Madame, and Duchess. The kittens were rather cute, and easy to distinguish from each other, and had a certain spunk to them. Despite being important to the story, O'Malley feels like one of the characters not handled very well, ultimately he just comes across as a cat version of Baloo. Being voiced by the same actor certainly doesn't help, and the two even sing songs which are a tad similar to each other.

Musically, Aristocats does pretty well. Despite being similar to 'Bare Necessities,' the song 'Thomas O'Malley' is one of the films strengths, along with 'Scales and Arpeggios' and 'Every'body Wants to Be A Cat,' the latter of which is probably the most memorable and infuses the film with a much needed boost.

The entire film, again, is rather fun as we watch Duchess and her three kittens embark on a journey to get home, after their owner's butler tries to get rid of them upon learning they will inherit all of the money and estates. Along the way they meet the alley cat Thomas O'Malley, and set out on a series of adventures in order to get home. Perhaps the more annoying bit of the adventures is a trio of geese that they come across. While as a child I found them fun, upon more recent viewing I find that they are a bit tiring. In a way they remind me of annoying drunks who you wish would just leave so you can have some peace and quiet. As a villain, Edgar is ok, though there are certainly better villains out there.

3/5