Cruella (2021)
Cruella
By Emily Hubbard
- 3.5/5 Cameras 🎥🎥🎥.5
- Directed by: Craig Gillespie
- Starring: Emma Stone, Emma Thompson, and Mark Strong
- Where to find it: Disney +
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| No Copyright Infringement Intended |
When it comes to live-action Disney remakes (or in this case
spin-offs) the level of anticipation surrounding them is always clouded in
uncertainty, as previous releases have vastly differed in quality, leaving many
fans unsure of whether or not they’re worth their hard-earned cash. The
Hollywood giants’ previous outing, 2020’s Mulan, was an uninspired remake that
lacked all the flair that made its 1998 counterpart so iconic. But, if we look
a few years into the past, with 2014’s Angelina Jolie helmed, box office smash
Maleficent and into the present with 2021’s Cruella, it’s clear to see that
Disney hit the jackpot in its decision to focus on the iconic villains that children
of all ages grew up with.
Directed by Craig Gillespie, the man behind what should have been 2018’s Best Picture Winner, I, Tonya, Cruella is an unexpected surprise that mixes the high fashion and snobbery of The Devil Wears Prada, with the action and cunning of heist films such as Oceans 8, with fabulous results.
The film centres around the titular character, Cruella (Emma Stone), or Estella if you want to use her birth name, and her rather personal feud with Miranda Priestly type, The Baroness (Emma Thompson), with the addition of delightful supporting roles by Joel Fry and Paul Walter Hauser as Cruella’s long-suffering friends and partners in crime Jasper and Horace respectively. I’ll steer away from giving away any more plot details as I found the film works best if you watch it with a clear head.
Rather than create a film devoid of any joy, much like Mulan, Gillespie, and screenwriters Dana Fox and Tony McNamara took a page out of Maleficent’s book and created a movie that acts as a soft reboot for the classic 101 Dalmatians villain, painting her as an orphan with a love for fashion and a tragic past, instead of the puppy killing monster that we all love to hate. Some may criticise this new take on the character, saying that you shouldn’t humanise a villain as callous as Cruella, but how else was Disney expected to get audiences invested in such a cruel (pun intended) character?
Emma Stone shines as Cruella, truly embodying the character’s selfish views on the world and her plight for revenge but played with just the right amount of heart and charisma to make audiences root for a character whose evil future they are all well aware of. In fact, I would go as far as to say that Stone’s Cruella could serve as a de facto female alternative to The Joker. The film is also elevated by Emma Thompson’s fantastic performance as the ever so evil The Baroness, but that should come as no surprise being that Emma Thompson is a scene-stealer in every film she’s cast in.
Cruella is not without its flaws, however. Its 2 hour 12 minute run time often feels too long, with a number of scenes feeling like they could have been cut down significantly, or even cut entirely. There’s also the issue of the awful CGI dogs the film insists on using that detract from the overall beauty of the set pieces in which they are awkwardly edited into. For a film with a budget of $200 million, you would’ve thought Disney could afford better CGI.
Despite these flaws, however, Cruella is full of the usual spectacle audiences traditionally know and love when watching a Disney film, albeit in an unexpected way, with jaw-dropping costumes and perfectly timed needle drops that could rival Guardians of the Galaxy. I can only hope that Disney chooses to embrace the power and potential that films focusing on their ‘Rogues Gallery’ can hold. On, and I want a sequel.
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