The Aristocats (1970)

The AristoCats follows a rich feline and her three kittens, after their elderly owner willed all of her belongings to the cats, her butler Edgar plots to get rid of the felines.This movie is hilarious. The characters are loveable, the dialogue is great and there some fun slapstick action scenes. The music is great! The song "Everybody Wants to be a Cat" will be stuck in your head for days!The plot isn't very realistic (Is Disney ever "Realistic"?) But it's a lot if fun. The kids will definitely enjoy it!The voice-acting is good too. You may recognize Sterling Holloway, known for voicing Winnie the Pooh and the Cheshire Cat. Here he lends his voice to the cats' mouse friend.The AristoCats definitely deserves it's place among the Walt Disney Animated Studios canon.

The older I get, the more I realise how boring and lazy this Disney feature is. I am not saying that it is plain bad, but it really is forgettable. The only thing about it I really enjoyed was the "Everybody Wants to Be a Cat" scene and Thomas O'Malley's song. Okay, when Edgar meets these dogs, things get a little exciting, but that's it. It also has one of Disney's most dull and forgettable villains in the greedy butler Edgar. Not to talk about the many of the other side characters, which are merely shown one time in the film and then oddly appears at the very end to sing "Everybody...". Not that the characters are all just bad or unlikeable, they are just forgettable. I felt bored by listening to their voices.Definitely not one of my favorite Disney features.

The AristoCats is just another movie that offers a mix of charm, entertainment, and some dull, boring moments. Officially the first film of the Dark Age, there is plenty to go around for music, characters (interesting to see Duchess have a Hungarian accent, courtesy of Eva Gabor), and a workable, understandable amount of intentionally cute scenes. Despite that, there are still plenty of flaws in the story execution, in a way that my interest was swiftly dropping as a casual movie attender (I had to force myself to go through all of it as a critic). I personally found the timing of the re-engagement moments to be quite precise, with the sometimes hilarious antics of Lafayette and Napoleon hitting at the moment that I was about to get up. I might consider it a style, featuring several ups and downs to initially make the audience want to leave, but then transforming into psychological captivation. I was somewhat annoyed by this, though the movie is overall worth a viewing. It might not be suitable for those who despise cats (like Angry Grandpa), so be warned.

Kids will love it, but adults might find it so-so. Not anywhere near as good as Wolfgang Reitherman's previous movie, The Jungle Book. Story is quite basic, even dull at times. Music is okay but not great. Certainly not in The Jungle Book's league.This said, it has many sweet moments. It is shortish - 70 minutes long.Animation is also different to The Jungle Book, though this is not necessarily a bad thing. Here the animations seem more like water colour paintings than cartoons, which gives the movie a more artistic impression. With Paris as the setting, it works well.Voice performances are good, and well-cast. Phil Harris, who played Baloo in The Jungle Book, is back, as O'Malley The Alley Cat, and does a great job.