101 Dalmatians
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Movie Reviews of 101 Dalmatians
Movie Review: Great family fun!
Summary: 4 Stars
This movie is great family fun. The "real" people put a new spin on the Disney classic. My children loved the original and now claim, "this one is even better". Glenn Close is over the top as Cruella!Movie Review: 101 Dalmations - Live Action
Summary: 4 Stars
Glenn Close is really a good sport in the role of Carella De Ville. She was awesome!Movie Review: Glenn Close steals the show
Summary: 3 Stars
Disney remade their classic animated film of the same name 35 years after the original, as a live-action movie in 1996. The tale is familiar to most: two Dalmatians, Pongo & Perdy, bring their owners together. Roger (Jeff Daniels) and Anita (Joely Richardson) fall in love almost at first site when they meet in the park. They get married and their Dalmatians have puppies. Sounds like a lovely romantic tale, right? It would be if it weren't for Anita's boss, the evil Cruella de Vil (Glenn Close). Cruella is a fashionista who loves fur...and her latest desire is to own a coat made of Dalmatian fur. When she learns that Anita's dog has had a litter of 15, she sets her sites on them to make her desire come true. Anita & Roger turn down her offer, so she sends her bumbling minions Jasper & Horace (Hugh Laurie & Mark Williams respectively) to steal them for her.
Does it equal the original? No, not really...but this is not a surprise. How could you top Marc Davis' animation of Cruella, one of the most memorable characters in animation history? Still, you have to give Glenn Close much credit for making Cruella her own...remove her and you have little reason to watch this film. With her fright wig and amazingly over the top costumes, Close truly comes close...she is an evil delight to watch as she barks orders (pun intended) and does everything in her power to make the fur coat a reality. Laurie (now starring in the hit series "House") and Williams are excellent as her bumbling henchman. The animals are also lots of fun to watch, as they often show that they are much smarter than their human counterparts.
Note to parents: this movie is somewhat darker than the animated versions, with a few creepy scenes with the taxidermist. Nothing major, but still parents might want to be careful as Glenn Close's characterization is more frightening and nightmare inducing than her animated namesake.
Sadly and surprisingly, there are no extras on this DVD other than a theatrical trailer. The widescreen (2:35:1) picture is excellent (enhanced for 16x9 TVs), and there is a wonderful Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround mix.
Overall, an enjoyable film that is bumped up a few notches thanks to Glenn Close's performance.
Movie Review: 101 Dalmatians
Summary: 3 Stars
Modern technology has taken live-action filmmaking to limitless heights, but there are still some stories that are more suited for feature-animation. Dodie Smith's "The Hundred and One Dalmatians" is one of them. Walt Disney knew this and his "One Hundred and One Dalmatians" is one of the most loved animated films of all time. Unfortunately, director John Hughes did not and his live-action remake, "101 Dalmatians, comes up short in the end.
It is not a bad film, but it is incredibly awkward and extremely unfocused at times. Instead of a seamless blend of animal and human characters, we are now forced to get involved almost solely with the two-legged heroes of the picture, which is occasionally sweet, but obviously not right for a film that is supposed to be about dogs. Pongo and Perdita along with their brood of ninety-nine puppies have been pushed to the wayside and the collection of fur and feathered supporting players, which include a menagerie of barnyard creatures, are reduced to slapstick.
Cruella DeVil is still the driving force of the plot. Glenn Close gives audiences a marvelously overblown performance full of grandiosity and nuance, but her efforts are still no match for her animated predecessor voiced by Betty Lou Gerson. And Cruella's bumbling cronies, Horace and Jasper (Mark Williams and Hugh Laurie) are merely cockney clones of the burglars from Hughes's "Home Alone" movies.
The only characters that seem right are Roger (Jeff Daniels) and Anita (Joely Richardson). Daniels and Richardson have genuine chemistry and the prescence of Joan Plowright as Nanny only adds to the warmth. The three of them deserve a movie of their own.
Movie Review: Colorful, Cute & Clichéd
Summary: 3 Stars
This is one of those movies that truly is - and I don't mean to use the cliché - entertaining whether you are a kid or an adult. The dalmatians and other animals are a lot of fun to watch.
Glenn Close must have had a lot of fun making this film, playing the evil "Cruela De Vil." Just as much fun, maybe more, were the two bumbling dog-nappers - Hugh Laurie and Mark Williams, I believe - idiots who were genuinely enjoyable to watch in their stupidity. Their dialog was hilarious.
There are nice colors in here, too, so a widescreen DVD is good to have if you enjoy this movie. I'd be curious to see how it would look with a good Blu-Ray transfer.
Speaking of clichés and such, there are some drawbacks here that were a little annoying to me, like overdoing the intelligence of the dogs, taking them to the absurd level level of being smarter than humans.. Also, you get the quick "film romance" in which two people (Jeff Daniels and Joely Richardson) barely meet and already they are in love, getting married in absolutely no time.
However, this is still recommended for adults if you want a want 103 minutes of a "cute" story and don't take any of it the least bit seriously as if anything in here could really happen.