All Wet (1927)
★½ — All Wet (1927)
Ninety-eight years old, and you can feel every single one of them.
Look, I'll be straight with you: the main reason to sit down with All Wet is historical curiosity. This is Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, the character Walt Disney made before Mickey Mouse came along and changed everything. That's the pitch. That's pretty much the whole pitch. If you're working your way through the early Disney catalogue, or you want to understand where Mickey's DNA came from, then fair enough, here you are. But as a piece of entertainment in its own right, in 2025? It's rough going.
Silent animation from this era is always a bit of a gamble. Sometimes the craft and the comedy punch right through the decades and you find yourself genuinely charmed. I've had that experience. I watched Trolley Troubles, also from 1927 and also featuring Oswald, and while it's no great shakes either, there's at least a scrappy little energy to it that keeps you with it. All Wet doesn't quite manage that. The gags feel laboured, the timing is slack, and the whole thing sits there on screen asking you to be more patient with it than it's really earned.
There's something slightly melancholy about watching these early Oswald shorts knowing what comes next. Mickey Mouse arrives, Oswald fades into obscurity for decades, and the character spends most of the twentieth century as a footnote. Watching All Wet, it's not hard to see why the mouse won out. Oswald here is serviceable, but there's no real spark to him. He's a vehicle for a series of gags rather than a personality you want to spend time with. Compare that to what Disney would do with Mickey within a year or two, and the leap forward is remarkable.
The animation itself is what you'd expect for 1927: rudimentary, rubbery, the characters stretching and snapping back in that proto-cartoon way that was still finding its feet. There are moments where you can appreciate it as a historical document, a glimpse of an industry in its absolute infancy. But appreciation and enjoyment are two different things, and I'd be lying if I said I was having a good time.
If you want to do the full early Disney pilgrimage, by all means tick this one off the list. Watch it alongside Steamboat Willie and you'll have a genuinely interesting before-and-after picture of how quickly things moved. The contrast is striking. But go in expecting an experience rather than a film, because as a film, All Wet has very little to offer beyond its footnote status.
One and a half stars. History has its place, and I respect the preservation of these things. But respect isn't the same as a recommendation.
Rating: ★½ | Year: 1927 | Watched: 2025-09-07
Where to watch
Watch in the UK
Stream: Disney Plus
Physical: Amazon UK · Zavvi
Watch in the US
Stream: Disney Plus
Physical: Amazon US
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Related on Movies With Macca
More from Walt Disney: Trolley Troubles (1927) · The Skeleton Dance (1929) · The Barn Dance (1929) · Steamboat Willie (1928)
More from the 1920s: The Eagle (1925) · The General (1926) · The Docks of New York (1928) · A Throw of Dice (1929)
More animation: Fantastic Planet (1973) · Alice in Wonderland (1951) · Mononoke the Movie: The Phantom in the Rain (2024) · Mononoke the Movie: Chapter II - The Ashes of Rage (2025)
More comedy: The Eagle (1925) · The General (1926) · Americana (2023) · The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad! (1988)
