DAC 20: The Aristocats

The Aristocats - 6.2/10

Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you 101 Dalmations - with cats! (Complete with Lady and the Tramp ending.) This is another one I never watched as a kid. In fact I never even heard of it until in my teens; I saw it on one of those re-release trailers they do on their videos. It was many years more until I actually got around to watching it. Probably around four years ago now. Anyway, it's nothing special. In fact, I gotta tell ya, of all the Disney films I've seen so far, this one is by far the most phoned-in. The animation is lazy, the art is average at best, the writing is formulaic and takes no risks, the voice cast is dull (and in the case of the male lead, recycled from The Jungle Book), and to top it all off, with the exception of the two dogs, who don't even have much screen time, there isn't a single interesting character in the mix. There are, however, several annoying ones, the most prominent of which being a pair (later trio) of geese, who pull double-duty in the bad character arena by also being completely pointless and irrelevant to the plot. There were also several pointless musical numbers, which wouldn't have been so bad in and of itself if they were at least catchy, which they are not. There was precisely one part of the movie that actually made me laugh, and I'll admit it was legitimately funny. But one moment in an hour and fifteen minutes is pathetic.

All that I could excuse. After all, even Disney is allowed a dud here and there. But the part that makes this movie pretty much completely unsalvagable is the utterly ineffective villain. First of all, in terms of motive, I'm totally on his side. I mean, she's leaving everything to her freaking cats instead of him? WTF, lady? I'd be pretty pissed off too. Second, and even more important, he's an absolute effing moron. He learns about the cats' inheritance, and decides they need to be done away with right then and there. You know, completely ignoring the fact that A.) the woman in question is still alive and perfectly healthy, B.) he gets everything after the cats anyway, and would be taking care of them while they're alive which amounts to the same thing, and C.) cats don't actually have nine lives and he would easily outlive them naturally. The whole plot was contrived, formulaic and yes, pointless. I don't know if I would have enjoyed it more as a kid, but as an adult it just doesn't work.

I am not a fan of this movie.