Movie Thoughts: Cruella (2021)

• Released: 28 May 2021
• Directed by: Craig Gillespie
• Running time: 2 h 14 min
• Rating 3/5

Synopsis

A young woman named Estella tries to upstage the fashion icon known as the Baroness after the death of her mother.

My Thoughts

Okay, so you're reading this in the future because this review won't be posted straight away, but this movie is really the hot topic on the Internet right now. Mostly because of the hilarious "Dalmatians killed Cruella's mother" moment that's floating around on Twitter and Tumblr. And, yes, that part is true, but there is more to it. 

As a concept, I don't really like this movie. Cruella (the character) can just be a fucked up and evil villain and doesn't need a tragic backstory to humanize her. She's just a fashion icon that is obsessed with furs and wants to kill puppies for this exact purpose. That's it. We don't need more. In fact, the Glenn Close and Once Upon a Time versions of the character were portrayed just fine. Then there's Cruella.

As a movie in and of itself, discounting the fact that this is making a sympathetic backstory for a well-known Disney villain, this honestly was just a fine movie. Not good, not bad, just average. It definitely had its down moments (the horrible CGI on the Dalmatians and the hilariously executed mother-death scene for example), but it definitely had some positive points as well (the relationship between Cruella and Horace and Jasper).

But the fact that this is a Cruella spinoff movie meant to function as somewhat of a prequel to the 101 movies, just really ends up hurting it in the long run. It just feels so disconnected from her original character. This portrayal of Cruella actually loves dogs (including Dalmatians. Heck, she even takes in the literal three dogs that offed her adoptive mother), doesn't dream of skinning them and has a healthy family-like relationship with Horace and Jasper. It just...doesn't feel like the same character.

She definitely has her moments where she does feel like the "original" Cruella, but it's just sparse moments that are 90% of the time an act. She does pretend to have skinned the Baroness' dogs at one point, but that isn't the case.

The whole plot with the Baroness and her being Cruella's birth mother is honestly the core of the story, so that doesn't even have to do with the pre-established Disney version of the character. It was definitely an interesting plot that had me engaged, but, again, it just feels like it doesn't connect well to the original character she's meant to portray.

So I genuinely did like some aspects of this movie, but there's plenty of things holding it back as well. I think I honestly enjoy it the most for all the ridiculous memes it has spawned. That's definitely something good, but not in the way the movie intended, that's for sure.