Cruella Review
Ladies and gentlemen, that is our angle
Summary:
Cruella follows the story of a young Estella von Hellman and her journey to become Cruella de Vil that everyone knows and loves. At a young age, Estella always had two sides to her: Estella, the kind girl, and Cruella, the genius troublemaker. After being expelled from school, Estella and her mother travel to a party thrown at the Baroness’ estate. There, Estella crashes the party and is chased by Dalmatians. Although Estella escapes, her mother is pushed off a cliff to her death. Orphaned, Estella lives on the street until Jasper and Horace find her at a fountain. The three form a small group and begin surviving as little thieves.
Characters:
We have 4 main characters in Cruella. Cruella is a very intelligent woman with a pretty dark past. She struggles to control the dark side inside of her, but she is nice to those around her. She dreams of working in the fashion industry, specifically for The Baroness. The Baroness is a fashion god, controlling nearly everything. Her competition doesn’t exist, and everyone seeks her approval. She is for sure on the crazy side, and always greedy for more power. Jasper and Horace are Cruella’s childhood friends and henchmen. They have survived together without parents and are very resourceful. They don’t have the dreams that Cruella has, but they are more than willing to help her achieve hers.
Cruella Review
This movie was fantastic and I had such a good time watching it. 101 Dalmatians was never one of my favourite Disney movies as a kid but I could never forget Cruella De Vil and her evilness. When I heard about this movie, I thought the character was perfect for an origin story. The first thing I think this film did right was that it was pretty dark for a Disney movie and it had a dark tone that is maintained throughout. There are a lot of darker ideas explored in the film and it feels justified for the character in question and especially how the events of the film play out.
The other thing I liked in this film was that Cruella was still villainous in most of the film and she learned more about the villain than hero even though we could still empathize with her. Emma Stone kills it as Cruella and I love the way she portrays multiple versions of the character as both Estella and Cruella feel like they’re the same person yet they are distinct. All the characters are good in this from Horace and Jasper to the Baroness they each gave different types of characters for Cruella to play off of. I thought that especially for Horace and Jasper they got to be more than henchmen which is more interesting for a story.
This movie is quite long but I feel that I never got bored and was always interested in what was happening on the screen. I love the middle of this film and seeing all the ways Cruella does her criminal activities and shows off extravagant outfits. This movie has a really awesome soundtrack with many great songs from the ’60s and ’70s that I didn’t expect to be such a big part of the film. The comedy was an aspect of the film I did not expect to be such a big part but it balances nicely with the darker moments and many moments made me laugh. My only problem with the film is that I think the ending left too many questions open-ended and I would’ve liked more closure. That being said the movie does set up more installments that I would love to see.
All in all, this is an awesome movie that I would highly recommend to Disney fans and non-Disney fans. It’s a good time. So hop on Disney+ and check it out.
