Cruella - Movie Review

Critics Score - 6 of 10

General Audience Score - 6 of 10

Before the modern animated Disney classics existed such as The Lion King and Beauty & The Beast, there were the original classics, the movies you owned on VHS as a kid growing up. Animated masterpieces like Sleeping Beauty, Snow White, Pinocchio, The Jungle Book and 101 Dalmatians. Many of these films are being rebooted as Disney sees fit, although for the 101 Dalmatians franchise, Cruella slides in as a live action prequel more than a retelling of an original. But there’s something unsettling about many of the modern versions of animated classics, when new versions of films change things from the old, it’s as if Disney is the oil company and to get their pipeline through an area they’ll just need to run it through an Indian graveyard and pave over the hallowed ground without regards to the feelings of those who hold them sacred. Thankfully Cruella dodges many of the bullets that Disney reboots have fallen victim to, by going the route of the prequel it’s able to add some details to the existing story and throw in some clever throwback moments from the original cartoon without committing blasphemy by messing with the original story much. Just because it doesn’t make some of the mistakes the other Disney reboots have made mean this film isn’t without its flaws, because leading you to think this is a great movie would be totally Cruella. But probably not as bad as that pun.

SYNOPSIS - Our voyage into the live action prequel starts with young Estella Miller showing her naughty side in school and finally getting kicked out. Her and her mother head to London where at a gala, little Estella disobeys and accidentally sets some vicious Dalmatian dogs loose and they *spolier alert* give her mother a crash course in cliff diving. The now orphaned Estella meets up with other youngsters Horace and Jasper and they basically become grifters, leaching off society and scamming out a living. But flash forward, the kids have come of age and Estella (Emma Stone) gets a job in the fashion industry and is trying to get in and climb the ladder to impress the fashion icon Baroness Von Hellman (Emma Thompson). These two are the stars of the show and both put in very good performances as they try to out scheme the other, but the excitement of challenging a truly great villain never reaches to the level of The Devil Wears Prada or even another film from earlier this year, I Care A Lot. The screenplay and dialogue aren’t terrible but the film does drag through portions, a good fifteen to twenty minutes trimmed off this film could’ve really helped the pacing in keeping our interest peaked. As Estella ruthlessly fights against the Baroness, she finally starts becoming her alter ego Cruella despite Horace (Paul Walter Hauser) and Jasper (Joel Fry) trying to pull her back from the dark side. 

By the time the last dog has been skinned to be turned into coats and the movie has slowly wound it’s way to a less than grand finale, we’ve had a decent romp with these dueling villains, but it doesn’t add up to much. Besides the great performances, the two villains and the costumes they wield are the real stars of the show and the time spent with them is delightful. The director’s vision for the film is clear and commendable, but many of the secondary characters are footnotes, most don’t contribute much to the story and if anything, feel more like forced minority inclusion than a necessary story character. The music is fun and adds a little momentum to some of the sequences but the sheer volume of 1970’s rock anthems is overwhelming and drowns out a fairly decent original score. While the film succeeds in some aspects it struggles with others and although the good outweighs the bad, it doesn’t come close to the fun and charming nature of it’s animated ancestor.

SUMMARY - Cruella keeps to a much darker tone for a Disney film, but it’s interesting to see them do something different and it’s definitely better than many of the updated remakes, which isn’t saying much. It’s entertaining enough in the moment but highly forgettable and unless you’re a huge fan of costume design, you may be pretty blasé after learning the backstory of the heinous Cruella Deville.