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Have you ever wondered how Cruella De Vil, the vampire fiend from Disney’s “101 Dalmatians,” became so evil as to want to kill puppies and skin them for fur coats? Here’s your chance to find out. You didn’t, did you? It’s all right, there’s a movie about it, called “Cruella.” It stars two Academy Award-winning actresses, runs for two hours and fourteen minutes, and is estimated to have cost $200 million, with a significant portion of that money going toward an extensive soundtrack featuring popular songs from the 1960s and 1970s. However, it never provides an answer to the burning question posed by its very existence: what new information could possibly lead us to sympathize with the original film’s nuclear family-hating, want tobe-dog-killing monster? With each step backward, the more the connection between “Cruella” and “101 Dalmatians” appears to be a cynical attempt to tie an existing Disney intellectual property to a story that has no organic connection to it.
“Cruella” is directed by Craig Gillespie, who does a discount Scorsese, keeping the camera flying and the phonograph needles dropping, much as he did in “I, Tonya.” The film tries to combine a couple of popular modes in an awkward manner. For example, “Solo: A Star Wars Story,” “Pan,” and the third Indiana Jones film (the opening sequence of “The Last Crusade” showed Indy acquiring his whip, his chin scar, his hat, and his fear of snakes in the span of ten minutes) are all examples of origin stories for long-lived, brand-name characters who didn’t need one in the first place.
“Bates Motel,” “Ratched,” and other television shows and films have explored the abusive childhood of serial killer Michael Myers; the billion-dollar-grossing, Academy Award-winning “Joker”; and Tim Burton’s “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory,” which gave Roald Dahl’s inscrutable, faintly sinister clown Willy Wonka a tragic chivalry.
The screenplay for “Cruella” follows in that tradition, or at least attempts to do so at times. This piece is disorganized, and it frequently appears to pause to remind itself that it is supposed to have something to do with the Disney film “101 Dalmatians.” Dana Fox and Tony McNamara are credited with writing the script, which was adapted from a story by Aline Brosh McKenna, Kelly Marcel, and Steve Zissis. However, despite the fact that it was theoretically inspired by a Disney cartoon feature adapted from Dodie Smith’s book, you could easily change the heroine’s name and remove a few iconic production design elements (such as Cruella’s yin-yang hair and Bentley roadster, as well as the spotted dogs) and have a serviceable feature in the vein of “Matilda,” “Madeline,” or “Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfort
Although Estella (Emma Stone) does not want to kill and skin dogs, she does so because she is fond of them prior to the events of Cruella. Her treatment of animals is never depicted as cruel, and she never speaks ill of them in any way throughout the narrative. Despite the fact that she blames Dalmatians for the accidental death of her mother, a poor laundrywoman played by Emily Beecham, this is more of a reflexive hatred, similar to despising the ocean after losing someone close to you to drowning. In any case, she has made no declaration of hatred toward canines in general. As our heroine (or antiheroine), she rises above a life of deprivation on the streets of London, where she meets up with a couple of friends, Jasper (Joel Fry) and Horace (Paul Walter Hauser), and embarks on a career of petty crime and scamming. Estella, a talented draftswoman with a keen sense of fashion, lands a position at a major department store. In a fit of rage, she rearranges a shop window display because it features a gown she finds unsightly (and in the process, alters it), and as a result, she is summarily hired by the store’s most important vendor, fashion designer Baroness von Hellman (Emma Thompson). The Baroness is a control freak who abuses her staff, but she nevertheless becomes the closest thing Estella has had to a mentor and mother since the death of her own mother several years ago.
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The story evolves into a “All About Eve” riff about intergenerational rivalry between women working in a creative environment as a result of a series of incidents that are too complicated to detail here in detail. After years of the Baroness abusing her and stealing her glory, Estella gradually comes to realize what a vile person the Baroness is, and she vows to embarrass and destroy her in order to usurp her position as the most fashionable woman in London. In all, it’s a solid foundation for a slapstick comedy-drama set in what appears to be an alternate universe—one that’s more clever and colorful than the one we’re stuck with—even if Jasper and Fry never quite rise above the status of obligatory sidekicks, and Cruella is introduced to her childhood best friend, Maya (Kirby Howell-Baptiste), a photojournalist and gossip columnist who is reduced to the status of
However, Estella must take on the role of Cruella De Vil, just as Arthur Fleck had to take on the role of the Joker and Anakin Skywalker had to take on the role of Darth Vader, if the production is to be shown in theaters and broadcast on Disney+. As a result, much like the half-charming, half-pointless “Solo,” “Cruella” is forced to shoehorn bits of lore and backstory and fanwankery into the narrative, none of which is more risible than the scene in which the heroine decides that Cruella needs an equally colorful last name and takes it from a specific model of automobile, which is a parody of the movie “Solo.” Was that really necessary? Isn’t the play on the words “Devil” and “da vil(lain)” sufficient enough for you? Although it’s (amazingly) worse than the scene in “Solo” where the intergalactic customs official gives the hero his last name because he’s traveling alone, young children are going to gobble up that sort of thing with gusto, regardless of how bad it actually is.
It’s a shame, because “Cruella” is filled with situations, set pieces, and moments of characterization and performance that suggest it had everything it needed to stand on its own two high-heeled feet, minus the guardrails of intellectual property owned by the largest entertainment conglomerate the world has ever seen.
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As an example, Estella’s righteous desire to punish a bad person is intertwined with her desire to succeed in business, a layer of psychological complexity that the script isn’t interested in delving into because it already has its hands full trying to make Estella a compelling character in her own right while also preparing her to become Cruella de Vil, a transformation that becomes increasingly illogical as you learn more about the character. That’s a shame. When it comes to real life, people frequently do good things for bad reasons and vice versa, or they use their trauma as a justification to bring themselves down to the level of the person they’ve determined is (to quote Bond’s nemesis Blofeld) the source of all their suffering. It appears as if the film is unable or unwilling to deal with the material that is in front of it, and as though it is attempting to claim credit for a level of sophistication that it does not possess.
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Without a doubt, “Cruella” is stylish and energetic, with a sly edge that is unusual for a recent live-action Disney film. However, it is also exhausting, disorganized, and frustratingly inert, especially when you consider how hard it is trying to convince you that it is thrilling and cheeky in nature. The main story hasn’t begun yet, and you realize this after forty minutes into the game. It would be a nonsensical jumble of broken images if it weren’t for the acrobatic camerawork, the game lead performances by two Emmas, and the parade of eye-popping costumes by Jenny Beavan (eighty knockouts in 134 minutes, not counting the period-inspired background garb on the extras), and it would be as aesthetically bankrupt as “Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker” and the first “Suicide Squad.”
More frustrating is the film’s reluctance to acknowledge the fact that it contains Sympathy for the Devil, despite the fact that one of many obvious song cues assures us that it does. She is not the devil, not even close to it, as the script keeps telling us, but she is a horrible person in many ways, and we are expected to adore her because the Baroness is so much worse than she is.
The film reaches a giddy climax in its final act, when it transforms into a contest of wills. It is at this point that the leads let their hair down. A cartoonish sense of grandeur is achieved by Thompson, who dresses like a supervillain in haute couture throughout the film. When the Baroness makes a sneer or side-eye, it is a non-physical attack on her enemies and subordinates, some of whom are unaware that they have been symbolically executed until their heads hit the basket. The effect is similar to what Cate Blanchett achieved in “Thor: Ragnarok,” another film in which the costumes were practically giving performances of their own, and the smartest actors in the cast knew how to blend in with them to create a seamless whole in which to act.
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“Cruella” does not embrace darkness, despite the fact that it repeatedly threatens to do so. There’s nothing in this film that comes close to the emotional impact of the scene in the first “Maleficent,” in which the heroine awakens on a hilltop after spending the night with a shady character and discovers that her wings have been chopped off by the villain. It’s an atrocity that reads as a sexual and psychological assault, despite the fact that the film never frames it that way, and it propels us through the rest of the story, allowing us to root for a traumatized, outcast monster instead of against him. “Maleficent” eventually makes concessions as well, restraining its heroine’s most heinous tendencies to a certain extent. But it’s still the closest Disney has come to allowing Satan to be a footnote in the Bible, and it looks better with each new release from the studio, such as “Cruella,” a film that flinches from its own premise while looking fantastic while doing so.
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On Friday, May 28, “Cruella” will be released in theaters and on Disney+ with Premier Access for a one-time fee, both simultaneously and simultaneously.
For more personality quizzes check this: Godzilla Vs Kong Quiz.
