Cruella (2021)

It happened! It finally happened! I saw a movie in theaters!
This is the first flick I’ve seen on the silver screen since “Knives Out” last year!
And yes, I’m fully vaccinated.

Anyway.

Megan and I saw “Cruella” (2021) in one of those nice theaters with the giant leather recliners.
Before I dig into the review itself, I must emphasize one very important point: this movie must be watched as a retelling of the lore of Cruella de Vil, not as a prequel to “101 Dalmatians” (1996), because if you go in expecting a prequel, you’ll leave the theater confused and angry.
It’s in the same vein that “Maleficent” (2011) was a flip-side retelling of “Sleeping Beauty,” not simply a villainous origin story.
That said: I think “Maleficent” did a much better job telling a retelling that also tied the prequel to the original.

“Cruella” started with Estella (Emma Stone) as a black-and-white-haired child who had both a knack for fashion and a cruel streak, which, understandably, drove her mother Catherine (Emily Beecham) to wit’s end. A series of unfortunate events unfolded and Estella found herself orphaned in London, where she met Jasper (Joel Fry) and Horace (Paul Walter Hauser). Together the three of them made a surprisingly lucrative living as a con artists and thieves, relying on Estella’s ability to make fashionable clothes from scraps while Jasper and Horace plotted out the activities. Estella dyed her hair, as someone with a two-toned mane would have stood out quite obviously while committing crimes.
But being a con artist wasn’t Estella’s idea of a successful life: she constantly day-dreamed about working for “The Baronness” (Emma Thompson) – both the brand name and the titular face of the company – as it was the crème de la crème of 1970s fashion in London.
Side note: Estella’s first “real” job was at the upscale “Liberty” shopping mall in London, which is a real place known for its upscale products and clientele.

Estella made a bad choice involving a bottle of brandy that resulted in a good chance run-in with the Baroness, when the Baroness decided to enter Liberty and berate the manager for his poor choice of window displays. The Baroness hired Estella on the spot, and boom: Estella’s wishes were answered!

Initially Estella loved her new job, where she had access to all of the fabrics and other fashionable materials she could ever hope for, but that enjoyment quickly turned sour as she realized just how selfish and cutthroat her employer was about not just taking credit for the employees’ creations, but firing and black-balling them in the industry if she was so much as having a bad day.
Between that and a plot-point I won’t spoil, Estella cracked and her alter-ego ‘Cruella’ came out. It was never made clear if she did actually have a split-personality, or if Estella just leaned into her second persona super hard. It was… abrupt, in a way that felt like the screenwriters just decided it was time for Cruella to appear because they couldn’t figure out proper character development.
Cruella waged a fashion war on the Baroness, not to sell her own line of clothes, but simply to destroy the market share that the Baroness had clawed tooth-and-nail to own.

Ultimately Estella/Cruella came out on top, winning out against the Baroness, with what appeared to be everyone getting their just-desserts.

There was a mid-credits sequence that would seem to suggest this movie was, in fact, a prequel to “101 Dalmatians,” but again, if you walk in with that expectation, nothing makes sense.

There were a bunch more characters in this that I didn’t talk about in the synopsis above: Roger (Kayvan Novak) was the Baroness’s personal lawyer, Anita Darling (Kirby Howell-Baptiste) was a reporter for one of the London newspapers, and John the Valet (Mark Strong) was the Baroness’s personal butler who turned against her and assisted in her downfall.
Mark Strong was severely under-utilized in this movie, especially as he’s a known quantity for quality antagonist roles; it’s a shame they didn’t use him for more devious deeds.

I don’t think I’ve seen Emma Thompson play a villainess before, but she did it so damn well! Her facial expressions were perfect, and she was flawless in her execution of a narcissist who would go to any lengths to protect herself, regardless of the cost in any direction.

Emma Stone also carried a surprisingly solid British English accent the entire way through, so that was nice. I didn’t hear her randomly switching to American English, or drop misguided Australian in there.

The music for this was good. It was a menagerie of pop music from the 70s, with “Come Together” by the Beatles sticking out in my mind. As no specific year was given during the movie, there’s no “this song wasn’t out by then” for me to nitpick, so that works.

The CGI for this, however, was terrible.
There were three dalmatians, a terrier, and a chihuahua. I’m 99% sure that there were never actually dalmatians on set, as every time those dogs were on screen, something just looked wrong about them; their movements were the wrong kind of fluid, they didn’t fit with the rest of the scenes, etc. The terrier and chihuahua were real, at least some of the time.
There was also a scene where they de-aged Emma Thompson by about 30 years. I actually couldn’t tell who it was supposed to be when they first showed that golem-face on screen, which is impressive, as Emma Thompson has been acting for decades and it’s not like her younger face is an unknown quantity.
There was some cool kinetic typography and overlays that happened during Cruella’s fashion war with the Baroness, which made for easy exposition without having to have someone explain to another character how successful Cruella was, which was a fun and convenient visual trick.

Despite the necessity of watching this as an alternate reality version of Cruella de Vil and not a connect-the-dots to the Glenn Close version, this movie suffers the prequel effect: there were so many things that were dropped in there as visual or scrip notes that just screamed “Look at me! I’m the think from that other movie! I’m a reference!” to the point where it was sometimes distracting.

It seems that Disney is now on a “lets take our villians and give them a sympathetic back story so we can make money” kick.
And I really wish they wouldn’t.
I don’t need to see squid-baby Ursula, or Scar before he got his scar, or Gaston as a privileged bourgeois child. There are evil people in the world who just want to see other people hurt, and they don’t all have sympathetic backstories. “Maleficent” was good, and I really enjoyed the change of pace with that one, but it is not a trend that needs to continue.

By and large, I enjoyed this, and it was a fine choice as my “first movie to see in theaters in almost 18 months.”
It’s not perfect by any means, but I’m definitely happy I got to watch it in a comfy leather recliner outside of my own home.
Here’s the catch though: I’m giving it a 3, not a 4, because as much as I enjoyed said theater-viewing, there was nothing about it that makes me want to tell you “you must see this in theaters!” – the colors and visuals weren’t particularly magnificent to benefit from the massive silver screen, the soundtrack was good (but not stellar) and didn’t take advantage of high-tier surround sound, and if you ultimately end up seeing this for the first time in the comfort of your own home, you won’t miss anything that I experienced.
See it and enjoy it, but don’t feel bad if you wait for it on RedBox.