Cruella (2021)

[dissolute ocelot]

This is free on Disney Plus now, and it's a prequel to lots of films about cute dogs. So somebody might watch it. Unfortunately, it's also rather dull despite a strong cast and lots of money.

Not as good as The Devil Wears Prada is one way to look at it. Here Cruella-to-be is an orphaned young woman who goes to work for a haughty fashion designer portrayed by Emma Thompson. Who sadly isn't Meryl Streep, despite also having a bald sidekick (Mark Strong here, not Stanley Tucci). But while TDWP sets up fashion as an exciting yet cruel world, this doesn't. Thompson is an OK actor but doesn't really do mean. And whereas TDWP has Tucci and a career making supporting role for Emily Blunt, this film doesn't really care about any character except the lead. Cru has 2 petty criminal sidekicks who get no subplots and have no dreams. Plus, Cruella doesn't really have a moral dilemma or anything interesting like that.

There was talk about it being a bit punk, but Jubilee it isn't. There is a bit of stunt shock fashion with insects which is quite good. But nothing to frighten the kids. Its sense of time and place is so loose. And the fashion is a lot tamer than Westwood or McQueen. In an alternative world it might be a female-led fashion-centric Velvet Goldmine. But that would require it to care about stuff, like self expression and gender and art, not just the Disney brand.

The soundtrack is good on paper, but oh so clichéd. It genuinely uses The Time Of The Season for Swinging 60s London. (Actually it's like the 60s never happened with a department store that makes Grace Brothers look like Urban Outfitters.) And it doesn't care about chronology in its music, or changing taste or fashion over its decade-plus story.

In its favour there are varipus cute dogs, and no overt violence against dogs. But this Cruella is a lightweight in the dalmatian hatred compared to 101 Dalmatians

Spoiler alert

although 3 die off camera

[close]

. A villain's story needs more villainy.

I'm not sure who it's aimed at. It doesn't want to frighten the kids, but I don't think younger kids would care about much of it. It looks blandly expensive but not to inspire fashion or innovate in design. Like a lot of Disney, it's competent and well made, but not made for any reason other than having more content to sell.

[BritishHobo]

Indeed. It sort of threatens to get interesting in the middle, when

Spoiler alert

she goes off the deep end, starts treating Jasper and Horace like worthless scumbags, and just sets her sights on fucking up the fashion world. It's fun, it's visually interesting, it's a bit morally grey. She's an entertaining character without you having to agree with what she's doing, and you can see how she ends up as the theatrical monster who wants to murder a hundred dogs.

[close]

Then tbey get cold feet, and the whole third act drags it into a daft middle-ground where it's not really anything. Cruella ends up too nice and heroic for it to make any sense as a prequel to 101 Dalmatians - but she's still weird enough that the character we're left with is too convoluted to love and support. Just a bizarre woman who turned out to be justified in everything she did against an objectively evil villain, and who now loves dogs, actually.

All they had to do was say she

Spoiler alert

did kill the dogs earlier in the film.

[close]

Being too afraid to do that, in a fucking Cruella film, is the absolute peak of playing-it-safe Disney. It's literally the only thing about her character. It's like doing a prequel about Hannibal Lecter, and going "oh, we can't imply that he likes eating people, that's very graphic- we'll just say he thinks about doing it one time but then he chooses to be a good person."

[chveik]

shame she doesn't destroy some pupperinos

[popcorn]

Yeah it reminded me a bit of Joker in that I didn't feel, by the end of either film, that either protagonist had actually become the characters in the film titles. Cruella is worse in that respect.

[C_Larence]

Is it true that

Spoiler alert

Cruella's mum is killed by dalmatian and this is used as the reason for her hatred of them

[close]

?

[Jerzy Bondov]

Turns out her dad is Pongo

[BritishHobo]

Is it true that

Spoiler alert

Cruella's mum is killed by dalmatian and this is used as the reason for her hatred of them

[close]

?

Spoiler alert

They make it seem like that's the case at the start, but a major plot development is the reveal that evil Emma Thompson was actually responsible. By the end, Cruella seems to be a big fan of dalmatians, and owns one of her own.

[close]

[Lord Mandrake]

Great London film, kids really, really loved it. Emma Stone was amarzing, 20mins too long for me.

[C_Larence]

Spoiler alert

They make it seem like that's the case at the start, but a major plot development is the reveal that evil Emma Thompson was actually responsible. By the end, Cruella seems to be a big fan of dalmatians, and owns one of her own.

[close]

Christ. How does that lead into 101 Dalmatians?! Are there plans for a sequel?