Spoilers for those who nodded off during their middle-school English classes: at the close of Charles Dickens’s Oliver Twist, the rambunctious pickpocket Jack Dawkins is apprehended and carted off to Australia, that distant island prison. At the start of Disney’s The Artful Dodger, we meet Dawkins (Thomas Brodie-Sangster) 15 years later. He’s now an established surgeon, albeit hard up. For extra cash he plays cards, and accrues a debt significant enough to potentially have his hand lopped off. Right on cue, his crooked mentor Fagin (David Thewlis) arrives fresh off the boat, and—voilà!—adventure abounds. The Artful Dodger is fast and fun, and it does well to transfer the source material’s jovial spirit to the screen. There’s also a touching romantic subplot that dictates many of the ensuing “twists” and turns. —Jack Sullivan