Disney is a huge company that has been relevant for around 101 years, so just like any movie company ever, they have made some pretty bad movies. A big one that usually gets talked about negatively is the remakes of their animated movies in live-action form. When is the last time you saw someone talk good about a live-action remake from Disney? For instance, the newest live-action remake is Mufasa: The Lion King, and on IMDb it got a 6.7, and on Rotten Tomatoes it got a 56%. Which is not good for the company, and a miracle that they still do live-action remakes because most get around the same ratings, if not worse. For another example, take the live-action Mulan. I mean, it got a 5.8 on IMDb. Another example is by far the worst, being the Pinocchio live-action, which got a 27% on Rotten Tomatoes. But one of those remakes always stood out to me. That movie is called Cruella.
Cruella takes place in 1970s London. Where Estella, who will be later known as Cruella, gets kicked out of her school, and her mother, not knowing what to do, goes to Hellman Hall to ask the baroness for money. Now I will not spoil the rest of that scene because of the importance of the scene, but what happens later leads to Cruella meeting two boys her age named Jasper and Horace. If you have watched 101 Dalmatians, you will know exactly who I am talking about. But the point is that she finds them and starts to live with them and steal people’s belongings for a living. Later she works for the baroness, and she finds something out about her mother, and that’s when she flips from Estella to Cruella. She gets way meaner and crueler plotting her robbery, which she does and later does the plan when she finds a worse discovery. Once again I will not spoil this because it’s a pretty big plot twist, but immediately after she finds this out, her plan crumbles, and she runs out of the mansion and does her classic horrible driving, which is a nice nod to 101 Dalmatians. Cruella then goes on to wear the most lavish dresses to outshine the baroness. The rest of the movie, however, you are going to have to watch because the rest is just all spoilers.
This is a very good plot because it actually makes sense from the things we previously knew in 101 Dalmatians. Another reason why this is a good plot is because it is a well-paced plot and not spending too much time on one thing that they shouldn’t have. For example, The backstory of the movie that is shown in the beginning lasts 15 and a half minutes and doesn’t have any scenes that overstay their welcome. One of the scenes that shows how perfect their pacing is is when Estella, Horace, and Jasper are all getting chased by the cop, and they run into an alley and climb up a building while the camera moves up to show that they are climbing, and the chase only lasts around a minute, as action scenes should, so they don’t lose their suspense. Even when Estella works for the baroness, it shows how the baroness does business, and now that the viewer gets an inside look at how she acts, they change to Estella plotting her revenge. I also just really love the actual story part of the plot, and you could tell that the writers were having fun and actually care, as it took a little more than three years to write and produce. For another opinion on Cruella’s plot, Owen Johnson is “I actually really liked the plot.”.
Cruella is a unique movie in many ways, and one of those many ways is the music that is in the movie. With 15 songs in the soundtrack, 14 weren’t made for the movie and are from years ago. Songs like Stone Cold Crazy by Queen and Feeling Good by Anthony Newley and Leslie Bricusse really make the movie feel more alive. The song that was made for the movie called “Call Me Cruella” by Florence + the Machine was played at the beginning and end of the movie. It was a very good song considering it was made for the movie, and Disney has had a lot of bad songs made for live-action movies. This is also one of the few Disney live-action movies that is not a musical.
I personally loved the music in the movie, even making me listen to some of the songs and putting some on my playlist. They also have pretty good timing for the songs. An example of this is in the beginning when Estella is running from the Baroness’s dogs. She runs into a thing that I can not figure out what it is and it makes her swing up as the song says “You can’t catch these silver feet” while they show her shoes going toward the screen. For another opinion on Cruella’s music, Owen said “Oh yeah I liked how they used old music.”
A big part of this movie is clothes. This is for several reasons. One of those reasons is that Estella works for the Baroness, and the Baroness has a clothing company, and this company takes up a big chunk of the movie. Another reason why Cruella’s clothing is important is because all of the dresses she wears are a use of symbolism. For example, the first dress she wears as Cruella is a red dress and a white cloak over it. She burns the white cloak because she is at a no-color party, and she needs to reveal her color, which is a dress made by the baroness that she redesigned. This represents how she is going to be better than the baroness. Another dress she wore was her most detailed dress, which was the dress she wore while she stood in the baroness’s car and covered the car with her massive dress while people took pictures of her. This dress represents a monarch and how Cruella will topple the baroness in the fashion industry. The last article of clothing I will discuss is probably the most famous, the Dalmatian coat. And before you think she killed dogs for it, she didn’t; she just observed them for the coat. But the Cruella in 101 Dalmatians was most definitely going to kill those dogs. This coat represents her power over the baroness after she steals her dogs.
The details on these clothes are amazing. My favorite was the one she wears when she stands on the Baroness car because it has so much detail with the general-esque chest part and especially the chariots on her shoulders representing the rich. Another good thing she wears is a dress that is made out of newspapers and trash. This dress is only good for one reason, the symbolism. The dress represents the poor population of Britain. The dress is also gargantuan most likely representing that the poor population takes up the majority of Britain. But for another opinion on the clothes in Cruella, Owen said “The clothes were fabulous.”
It is currently my favorite movie, and it has been since 2021 and will probably be for a while. I saw it three times in theaters and 7 times on Disney+, and I’m currently in the middle of it right now because writing this made me want to watch it so soon, 8 times on Disney+. The movie is also going to have a second movie, which is said to come out sometime in 2025, but I guess that it’s going to be delayed to 2026 or 2027 since there have been zero trailers or teasers or anything. Overall, Cruella is an extremely good movie, considering it is a live-action remake, but I guess it’s more of a backstory, but still, my point still stands.
