BEFORE: Mark Strong carries over from "Miss Sloane", and here are the links that should get me to the end of this new month: Mark Strong, Daniel Kaluuya, Jesse Plemons, Lily Collins, Gary Oldman, Tom Hardy, Naomie Harris, Salma Hayek, Mahershala Ali, Awkwafina (again?), Benedict Wong, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Benedict Cumberbatch, Jessie Buckley, Olivia Colman, Anthony Hopkins, Frankie Faison, Kevin Hart, Eddie Murphy & Dave Chappelle, Mike Score (from Flock of Seagulls), Nick Rhodes (from Duran Duran), "Weird Al" Yankovic and Judy Gold. I think you can see from that how I'm going to cover three Marvel movies, Father's Day and then start the documentary chain, right?
THE PLOT: Estella is a young, clever grifter determined to make a name for herself in the fashion world. She soon meets a pair of thieves who appreciate her appetite for mischief and together they build a life for themselves on the streets of London. However, when Estella is hired by fashion legend Baroness von Hellman, she soon embraces her wicked side to become the revenge-bent Cruella.
AFTER: Well, this is the trend now, eventually every movie villain ever will have a film made about them that explains their origin, how they weren't always SO bad, and how maybe they're not evil but just misunderstood, and anyway, it's not really their fault, they were dealt a bad hand. How far back does this trend go? At least as far as the "Star Wars" prequels, which took great pains to reveal the origin of Darth Vader, he was vulnerable to the evil of the Emperor because his mother died, and because he loved Padme SO HARD that he couldn't bear to think that she might die too. (Who hurt you, George Lucas? WHO?). Since then, Disney/Marvel/Star Wars has released films like "Maleficent", and TV shows like "The Book of Boba Fett", showing things from the villain's point of view, and the more we learn, the more it's a big, complex world where nothing is anybody's fault any more, I guess. Look for Ursula from "The Little Mermaid" and Scar from "The Lion King" to get apologetic origin stories in the future, maybe.
"Cruella" also marks the first Disney film with an openly (?) gay character, and I guess maybe "Jungle Cruise" was the second. This is accidentally appropriate, because LGBTQ Pride Month starts today - a gay-centric film festival also starts tomorrow at the theater where I work, and I kind of feel like Ernie Hudson in "Ghostbusters" when he said, "If there's a steady paycheck involved, I'll believe anything you say." Of course, there have been plenty of gay-ish characters in Disney movies over the years, they just weren't OPENLY gay. Again, look for those prequels starring Ursula from "The Little Mermaid" and Scar from "The Lion King". What about LeFou in "Beauty and the Beast" and Li Shang from "Mulan"? Jafar? The male ladybug from "A Bug's Life"? Elsa from "Frozen" and Prince John from "Robin Hood"? Just saying, they've always been there.
Anyway, there are a few problems with "Cruella" as a prequel to "101 Dalmatians". First of all, it's too long - no WAY should this have been 2 hours and 14 minutes, this should have been a 90-minute story AT MOST. Connected to this might be the second problem, the constant need this film has to over-explain EVERYTHING, at least three times each. Every little detail - are we working an angle, what's the angle, is that the angle, wait, there's no angle, OK, yes, there's the angle. GIVE IT A REST! The entire story spends all of its time self-analyzing itself, over and over, and none of it is necessary. Just arguing over the main character's name change, from Estella to Cruella, happens at least five times, four of which are unnecessary. We only need her to chance her name ONCE, that's it, we get it.
The heists and scams are also all overly complicated - there's a necklace which changes hands about 8 times, and THAT'S 6 times too many. Steal the damn necklace, don't steal the damn necklace, I don't care any more, just wrap it up! This could have been a simple story - Estella gets bullied in school, Estella grows up and steals things, Estella gets a job in the fashion industry, it's not what she expected, and then her life isn't what she expected, so she turns psycho, split-personality, whatever, it's a simple story that got WAY over-complicated, too many reversals, too many setbacks, misguided attempts to bring the character to where she needs to be, all to set up who Cruella De Vil is in "101 Dalmatians". But again, when you explain her bad behavior, then you kind of end up justifying it.
It's also weird that Disney would make a film that glorifies living in an abandoned building, stealing little things, working up the ranks of pickpocketing all the way up to larger, corporate-level scams. Is this really a great message to send out to the kids in the audience, glorifying a life of crime? I guess that's the chance you take when you make an established villain the central character, but still, in retrospect it just seems like an odd choice. Like at one point Cruella tries to get one up on her rival, the Baroness, by stealing her three dalmatians (ah, more foreshadowing) and then wearing a dress that LOOKS like it's made from Dalmatian skin, leading the Baroness to (incorrectly) conclude that Cruella skinned her dogs to make a dress. She didn't, so, umm, congratulations, but clearly she THOUGHT about it - and then, as we all know, she's going to try to do that for reals in the future.
And it's another film that addresses bullying and gets it wrong - AGAIN. How many times do I have to point this out? If a kid is getting bullied, fighting back is never, NEVER the right thing to do. It only gets the bullied kid in more trouble, and then that's victim-blaming. Why can't a film ever show a kid who gets bullied and THINKS their way out of the situation? Getting smarter is the only acceptable response - they can secretly record the bullying, and submit that as proof to the headmaster or principal. They can befriend the bully, pay off the bully, get the bully some therapy, all of these are better solutions than physically fighting back, which lowers the bullied character to the level of the bully. Why do screenwriters just consistently rely on "fight back", when it's just not what we want our hero characters to do, in the long run?
Oh, yeah, this film won an Oscar for Best Costume Design. Since it's set in the world of 1970's British glam fashion, I guess that makes sense. One highlight is Cruella wearing one flammable white dress over a non-flammable red dress, and then flash-burning one dress to reveal the other. (Another strange message to send out to the kiddies - don't try this at home.). Estella's attempt to rise through the ranks of the fashion world looks like it COULD have been successful, if all this other stuff didn't get in the way, what a shame. But then, that's a bit like saying Peter Parker had a promising photography career at the Daily Bugle - it was never going to be his main gig, because the Green Goblin or Dr. Octopus would always be attacking somewhere, even the newspaper office itself.
As long as the Baroness continued to treat her employees like crap and take credit for their hard work, that's the toxic situation that turned Estella into her alter-ego, Cruella. Cruella pulls ever-increasingly bolder public pranks on the Baroness, then hides in plain sight, right under her rival's nose, just like Petey worked for Jonah. In many ways, this film is like "Spider-Man" mixed with "Horrible Bosses 3".
Oh, and don't forget "Star Wars", in the same manner that "Rogue One" took us RIGHT up to the beginning of "A New Hope", this film takes us RIGHT up to the situation where Pongo and Perdita are raised by their various owners, who are destined to meet someday, fall in love and make 101 puppies, so Cruella can have her Dalmatian coat. Man, does she know how to play the LONG game or what?
In other news, this film is way too multi-culti, conveniently there was apparently no racism in the UK in the 1970's, but that's the way Disney movies are made now, just like that live-action "Lady and the Tramp" remake. There's already talk of making another "101 Dalmatians" prequel - slash "Cruella" sequel, which is fine, but just please go in a different direction and stop setting up the things that haven't happened yet. There's plenty of story ground to cover in the 1970's or 1980's fashion era without re-hashing all the dog stuff.
But, jeez, get some fresher music - while I approve of using songs like "Bloody Well Right" by Supertramp and "Stone Cold Crazy" by Queen, most of the other songs have been used WAY too many times in commercials and other movies - like "She's a Rainbow" and "Sympathy for the Devil" from the Stones, "Time of the Season" by the Zombies, "Hush" by Deep Purple and "Fire" by the Ohio Players. This feels like some music coordinator JUST discovered classic rock, and wanted to use all the hits. At least for "Whole Lotta Love" and "Come Together" they used the cover versions made by Ike & Tina Turner instead of the originals. More like that, please.
Also starring Emma Stone (last heard in "The Croods: A New Age"), Emma Thompson (last seen in "How to Build a Girl"), Joel Fry (last seen in "Yesterday"), Paul Walter Hauser (last seen in "Da 5 Bloods"), John McCrea, Emily Beecham. (last seen in "Berlin, I Love You"), Kayvan Novak (last seen in "Men in Black: International"), Kirby Howell-Baptiste, Jamie Demetriou (last seen in "Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga"), Andrew Leung, Ed Birch (last seen in "Red Joan"), Paul Bazely (last seen in "Star Wars: The Last Jedi"), Abraham Popoola, Leo Bill (last seen in "Becoming Jane"), Tom Turner (last seen in "Ready Player One"), Paul Chowdhry, Sarah Crowden (last seen in "Jupiter Ascending"), Steve Edge, Richard David-Caine, Sid Sagar (last seen in "The Batman"), Tim Steed (last seen in "The Current War: Director's Cut"), John Mackay (last seen in "Ammonite"), Nathan Amzi, Billie Gadsdon, Tipper Seifert-Cleveland, Ziggy Gardner, Joseph MacDonald, Florisa Kamara, Dylan Lowe, Harrison Willmott with archive footage of Tallulah Bankhead.
RATING: 6 out of 10 broken champagne glasses
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