102 Dalmatians

Starring: Glenn Close, Gerard Depardieu, Ioan Gruffudd, Alice Evans, Tim McInnerny, Eric Idle, Ben Crompton
Directed by: Kevin Lima
Rating: G
Genre: Comedy, Adventure
2000

Times Seen:
Tim: 1


Summary: Cruella (Glenn Close) is released from prison, having been "cured" of her previous derangement. However, she soon begins thinking about dalmatians once again.

Review:

Tim: I enjoyed the live action remake, 101 Dalmatians. However, Disney should have left well enough alone. This sequel is a disaster, a mess of a movie that feels like a cash grab and aimed at only the most undiscerning of viewers. It's quite simply a bad movie.

Kevin Lima isn't necessarily a bad director, so I'm not sure what happened here. Maybe the transition from animation to live action was just too challenging for him. The script didn't help matters, either. The movie has so few redeeming qualities. In many ways, it's just a retelling of the original story, although less effectively. We never really care about the characters. The film makes the animals even more anthropomorphic, which puts even less focus on the human characters (not that it would have done the film much good, anyway). This reeks of a direct-to-DVD effort, even though that's not the case.

Part of the problem here is that this sequel tries too hard to capitalize on Glenn Close's performance as Cruella. That was one of the standouts of the live action remake. So, in true Hollywood fashion, "let's do it again, but more!" The problem is that Close as Cruella is best as a supporting character. She's the villain. Here, we spend far too much time with Cruella. She's not as interesting when we get too much time with her. Close also doesn't benefit from the added screen time. While I loved her performance in the previous film, she comes across as too cartoonish and over-the-top. Now, Close is a good actress and she has her moments, but her performance here is clearly far below the last one. That obviously hurts the movie. I like Ioan Gruffudd, but his performance as the "male lead" doesn't compare to what Jeff Daniels did. Gruffudd never makes a deep connection with the audience. I never really cared about his character or whatever nonsense he was getting up to. Also, I know they were married for a long time after this film, but Gruffudd and Alice Evans don't have much chemistry on screen. This is probably due to Alice Evans being a pretty bad actress (at least at this point in her career, I'm not sure if she ever got better). Gerard Depardieu was buffoonish in an ineffective performance, too. Truly, the cast didn't do very well here.

I thought about trying to explain the story here, but honestly, it's probably not worth it. There were moments where I could barely pay attention and none of it makes a whole lot of sense. Cruella is "cured" of her ailment, as long as she doesn't hear a loud bell or something. It was so stupid. There's a whole host of other animals including an unfunny talking parrot, more absurd villains trying to collect 100+ puppies, I don't know. It all felt so weak and so pointless.

I did watch the movie with my six year-old son. He loved 101 Dalmatians so I thought it would be fun to watch this one with him. He wasn't nearly as much of a fan. It took us multiple days to get through. There were a few moments when Cruella gets messy at the end that he found humorous, but he was certainly much less engaged during this film. I don't blame him.

Disney gets a lot of credit for its good movies, but the company really does produce some stinkers as well. This movie had so many problems, it just created such an unpleasant viewing experience. I really disliked 102 Dalmatians and it's fairly shocking how much worse this movie was compared to the last one.

Rating 1-10
Tim's Rating: 4.5



If You Enjoyed This Movie, We Recommend: One Hundred and One Dalmatians, 101 Dalmatians