Cruella

written by Dana Fox and tony McNamara

Directed by Craig Gillespie

Rating: 👌 ok

Cruella tells the back story of one of Disney’s all time best villains, Cruella de Vil. Before she set out after Roger and Anita’s beloved Dalmatians, who was Cruella? And what made her such a cruel devil?

I really wanted to like this movie. 101 Dalmatians is one of my favorite Disney movies, and a huge part of why it works so well is because Cruella makes the perfect bat sh*t crazy villain. But I spent most of Cruella’s 2+ hour runtime wondering when this film would finally end. They throw a lot at you. FASHION 💥 POP MUSIC 💥 DISRUPTING THE STATUS QUO 💥 But it left the film feeling overworked from start to finish. 101 Dalmatians is such a simple and well executed plot, and Cruella is the complete opposite. I don’t mind a longer run time when every scene is important and moves the plot forward. But a lot of Cruella felt like it could have been replaced with a fast paced montage.

It had elements of a heist movie, which worked really well and I wish that had been explored more. But at the end of the day, Cruella feels like little more than a cash cow left wide open for sequels. It’s not a bad movie per se, but it’s definitely not good.

Written by Zianna Weston