The Aristocats was the first Disney animated movie to be released after Walt Disney’s death and his absence is definitely felt in this confused, awkward and disappointing feature. The Aristocats is a film that seems to be built entirely on a pun, with an attitude of ‘Eh, we’ll just make up the rest along the way’; it fills the rest of the movie out with pointless filler, while borrowing heavily from any previous Disney film it can along the way, focusing especially on two or three. The result is a confusing mess lacking any sense of heart, drive, or purpose, an empty shell of a movie propped up with unfunny slapstick and boring character stereotypes. And besides, the pun wasn’t even that good to begin with.
Once again, the xerography technique of animation is used
(like I said, it lasted a while) and by this point, it’s really getting boring
to look at; the first use of it in 101
Dalmatians was so new and visually striking that it worked, it got along
alright for the next two films but by this point, I’m growing kind of sick of
looking at it. On top of that, this may very well be the roughest the animation
has looked yet, perhaps even moreso than in its debut in 101 Dalmatians; the lines are so thick and scratchy it frequently
looks as if we’re just looking at the animator’s most basic of sketches that
simply haven’t been cleaned up at all. Like I said, the first appearance of
this technique may have looked new and interesting, but Disney knew it couldn’t
ride on that novelty and had to clean things up a bit and at least make it look
a little more professional, there are slip ups and rough lines in The Sword in the Stone and The Jungle Book but nothing on the level
we see here. The animation for The
Aristocats just comes off as lazy and stagnant, as it seems to get worse
than what we’ve seen before, rather than better; some of the characters look
better than others, Duchess in particular is quite well animated, but for the
most part things are rather weak.
The character designs go hand in hand with
the animation style, they’re the same kind of angular, more stylised models
etc. etc. we’ve seen this enough by this point too, there really is no
creativity to them, they look exactly like the casts of 101 Dalmatians and, to a lesser extent, The Jungle Book, really nothing new; honestly, I think some of
them, particularly O’Malley, Edgar, Roquefort and the two dogs, are borderline
ugly. Once again the backgrounds are rather nice – though to be honest, it’s
pretty hard to make Paris look ugly – but they don’t really gel with the
character models, on more than one occasion you can very clearly see the
separation between the characters and the backgrounds, which looks distracting
and amateurish. The colours are all kind of dull and washed out, everything
looks like it’s been put through a dark filter or had a large shadow cast over
it, leaving its colours without any zest or vibrancy and making the
whole film rather visually unappealing. At the end of the day, it’s Disney, so
the animation is rarely going to be objectively terrible and there are some
nice aspects to it here, but it’s certainly below their standard of quality.
‘Now my pets, let’s try and pretend I have a real family so
that I can cover up my crushing loneliness and ignore the fact that I’ve wasted
my entire life.’
The story is one of the laziest and poorly structured we’ve
seen yet, it can’t seem to decide if it wants to be Lady and the Tramp with cats or 101
Dalmatians with cats, but it certainly wants to be one of them; the setting
of the movie, in early 20th Century Paris, is far too similar in
look and feel to the settings in these previous films, being American suburbia
and London, in the same timeframe, respectively. It borrows liberally from both
film’s stories, from 101 Dalmatians it
takes the group of lost animals trying to find their way home from the country
side, while getting help from a cast of other kooky animals along the way and
from Lady and the Tramp the budding
romance between a pampered house pet from a rich family and a tough, streetwise
stray. By trying to cram these two stories together, along with a number of
pointless subplots, the film has no time to properly develop either one; though
there is a clear plotline – O’Malley is trying to get Duchess and the kittens
back to Paris – this story is never well developed in and of itself, it never
becomes an exciting adventure or a fun road movie, things are just constantly sidetracked
by other characters, so as to ensure the cats don’t reach Paris before the film
has hit the eighty minute mark.
Stand by Meow
Even most of the subplots are entirely pointless, halfway
through the movie the cats bump into a couple of geese called Abigail and
Amelia, who take complete control of the film for a while, as their quest to
find their Uncle Waldo takes centre stage. Where does this lead? NOWHERE, they
get to Paris, there’s Uncle Waldo, the geese go off with him and we never see
them again (except as part of the big dance party between all the characters at
the end) what was the point of this? That’s a question I found myself asking a
lot throughout the film as it became steadily more and more apparent that very
few scenes are actually important or necessary, and that most of them serve no purpose other than to pad the film out – it’s
just filler. Even worse than the geese’s is a subplot about Edgar trying to get back
his umbrella and hat from the two dogs who stole them, (don’t ask) Napoleon and
Lafayette, because he fears the police will catch on that he’s the cat burglar
if they find them; what is the point of this? You guessed it, NOTHING, this one
really takes the cake as it is of absolutely no consequence to the main story –
at least those two geese spent time with the main characters, even if they didn’t
really help them or add anything to the situation and then just left, at least
they were part of the main action, but this is just completely meaningless. Edgar
doesn’t end up getting caught because of his hat and umbrella, the dogs don’t
come back to fight him or help the cats, absolutely nothing about this subplot
comes back in any way, making the scenes entirely pointless. Honestly, it’s
like the writers of this film knew absolutely nothing about the fundamentals of screen writing or even basic storytelling; this is not the work of seasoned veterans, these are the most basic and elementary mistakes
you can make.
The only subplot that even comes close to having a purpose is the
one where Roquefort the mouse and Frou-Frou the horse learn that Edgar was the
one who kidnapped the cats – well, learn is probably too generous, considering
Edgar just tells them – and then Roquefort goes on a quest to find the cats.
Roquefort does eventually end up helping the cats by getting O’Malley and his friends to
help out, but that’s just because Duchess asks him to, it has nothing to do
with his previous storyline – he doesn’t find the cats, he doesn’t do anything
to hinder Edgar, there’s even one scene where he stows away on the back of
Edgar’s motorbike in an attempt to follow him to the cats... but then he just
falls off. Why put him on the motorbike in the first place if he’s not going to
do anything!? It’s mind-boggling how poorly written this film is, there are so
many scenes and character stories that just go absolutely nowhere, it’s just
nothing but filler. I’m not asking for Hamlet,
but my God, SOMETHING would be nice, the film just has no purpose whatsoever. This
film is entirely lacking in not only direction, but meaningful conflict; oh
sure, there’s conflict, but it’s always resolved almost immediately and then
the characters go back to dicking around and doing nothing important, where is
the threat? Where is the driving force for the story? For that matter, where is
the story to begin with? The pacing is equally bad, things take way too long to
get started and then, when the plot is finally in motion, things go absolutely
nowhere and the film continually passes the baton to other characters who have
little to no bearing on the situation whatsoever; to call this film a mess
would be a compliment, it’s a complete disaster.
Pretty much how I ended up after this movie finished
The characters are as flat and tasteless as communion
wafers, there is just nothing to them – at best they’re completely defined by a
singular, one-dimensional stereotype, at worst they just seem to have no
personality at all. The only characters that come close to being any good are
Duchess and O’Malley, Duchess is very well voice acted by Eva Gabor who is
energetic and spirited in her delivery and really brings life to the character,
which is matched well by some nice, subtle touches in Duchess’ animation. Phil
Harris tries his best with O’Malley and manages some good moments, but he is
just not given enough to work with; O’Malley is such a lazy attempt at
recreating the charm of Tramp and Baloo that he ends up with no real
personality of his own, his traits are just on loan from his predecessors, to
the point that they even slap Baloo’s voice on him, hoping that things will
work themselves out. That sums up a lot of this movie really, just throwing
stuff together and hoping things will work themselves out, but unfortunately
for Disney, nothing really does.
All the other characters are awful, not
just boring, but legitimately really bad: okay, the kittens aren’t nearly as
annoying as kid characters can be, but they’re still a pain and I’m sorry but
these kids, the little girl in particular, just cannot act, they are very difficult
to listen to. Frou-Frou barely does anything at all and Roquefort is just
annoying, he won’t stop yammering on and has no interesting quirks; Scat Cat
and his crew don’t really get much time, except for Scat Cat himself who is
okay I suppose, but all we get from the rest of his group is one or two lines
which sum up which ethnic stereotype they represent. While most of them aren’t
really too bad, the Chinese cat is really quite offensive – it always seems to
be the Chinese in Disney movies, huh? – Honestly, I know racial inequality was
hardly stamped out in 1970, but I really think it’s too late to vindicate the
kind of stuff going on with this character: huge buck teeth, slanty eyes,
broken English, saying l’s as r’s, playing the piano with chopsticks and
singing about fortune cookies, it’s really unacceptable, even for the time and
is probably one of, if not the worst racial stereotype in a Disney animated
feature. I hate Abigail and Amelia, they are so obnoxious, they just won’t stop
talking or cackling like idiots, they are incredibly frustrating to watch and listen
to; similarly annoying are Napoleon and Lafayette who yammer on in a grating
southern twang and constantly play out the same tired comic routine like a
couple of Abbott and Costello wannabes. Seriously, they have this stupid bit
where Napoleon says he hears something really complex, then Lafayette will say
it’s just something simple, Napoleon insists that he’s the leader and therefore
decides what they’re hearing, before conceding that it is indeed what Lafayette
heard. Disney evidently thought this was hilarious, as they use it FOUR times
over the course of the movie, this quickly becomes insufferable, as it wasn’t even funny the first time; inexplicably,
this is the note that they choose to end the movie on, because the bit was just
SOOOO funny, that they had to cram another one in before the ending, it’s just
insane how blind they seem to be as to what works and what doesn’t, as they
fill the entire movie with the things that don’t work and leave the very few
things that do by the wayside.
Playing Chopsticks with chopsticks
The villain, Edgar, is just the worst, if you
can even call him a villain, he is pathetic; not threatening, not charming, not
cool, not interesting, not funny, not enjoyable, simply not good on any
conceivable level, not in this world, or in any other world, galaxy, universe
or parallel dimension. He’s not even really evil, he’s just kind of a jerk, but
not in an interesting or understated way either, he’s just a frustrated guy and, to be honest, with good reason; his boss - who he has seemingly served loyally for
many years, putting up with her weird obsession with her cats and her refusal
to discipline them or stop them from walking all over his face while he’s
trying to steer a carriage - decides to bequeath all her living possessions to
her cats before him. Edgar is pretty justified in thinking this is unfair and
INCREDIBLY STUPID, cats do not need money, jewels or a mansion, it makes no
sense; of course kidnapping the cats is still reprehensible, but with this in
mind, you almost forgive Edgar for doing it, he’s not a dick about it or
anything and continually refuses to kill the cats even though it would clearly
make his life easier, is he really supposed to be a villain? Yet, he’s not
really likeable either because, like the rest of the characters, he is annoying
and tiresome, constantly tumbling around, stumbling over his words, getting
involved in goofy slapstick with animals and just generally failing to
entertain. It’s like watching a clown at the circus, it’s not funny it’s just embarrassing
– hit yourself in the face with a pie or trip over your own shoelaces if you
want, but I’m not going to laugh, I’m just going to feel sorry for you, it’s
pathetic.
There are only three songs in the film, not including “The
Aristocats” which plays during the opening titles and to be honest, is decent.
As for the songs in the film proper, “Thomas O’Malley Cat” is lame and
fundamentally stupid, who just walks around singing their name? Is this
supposed to be charming, or funny? Is it supposed to give us an insight into O’Malley’s
character? I don’t get it, it’s just bad and really awkward. “Scales and
Arpeggios” is crappy and, I’m sorry to pick on the child actors again, but the
girl who plays the female kitten, Marie, just cannot sing; the only good song
and, really, the only thing anyone ever really remembers about this movie is “Ev’rybody
Wants to Be a Cat” which wasn’t quite as good as I remember it, but at that
point I was so sick of the film I might have been in too bad a mood to really
enjoy it, so I’ll give it the benefit of the doubt. It’s a good, jazzy song, it’s
very catchy and it has some fun, if not very clever, lyrics; it is undoubtedly
the best part of the movie and one of the few scenes that doesn’t bore you to death,
even though, like most of the others, it still has nothing to do with the
story.
‘Now what do you say we go eat some spaghetti?’
The Aristocats is
an embarrassingly hollow film, one without any sense of life, purpose, fun or
creativity; it starts nowhere and goes nowhere, has nothing to say and brings
nothing new to the table. It’s a movie comprised almost entirely of filler, a
huge amount of the scenes don't service the story or progress the plot in any
way, but are simply transparent attempts to pad out a movie which is based
around a fundamentally weak idea. Clearly, Disney just had nothing to work with
here, they should have just acknowledged that and either retooled the idea or scrapped
it entirely and started from scratch, instead they lazily try to surround it
with an array of subplots that go nowhere and loud, but empty characters, like
covering up a crack in a wall with an ugly painting. Unlike Cinderella, I do feel a little bad attacking
The Aristocats so fiercely, as it’s
mostly harmless, it’s kind of like picking on the disabled kid at school, it’s
just sad; nevertheless, it’s really impossible to ignore the
fact that this is just a bad movie and a dreadful bore.
Other Thoughts:
Other Thoughts:
- At least it has the decency to tell you when it’s finally over
Sweet release
3/10
Next Week: Robin Hood!
Email: joetalksaboutstuff@gmail.com
Twitter: @JSChilds
No comments:
Post a Comment