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Cast
Cruella
De Ville
(Glenn Close)
Chloe
(Alice
Evans)
Jean
Pierre (Gerard Depardieu)
Kevin
(Ioan Gruffudd)
Directed
by Kevin Lima
Written
by Kristen Buckley, based on the novel by Dodie Smith
Rated
G
Running
Time: 101 minutes
Distributed by Walt Disney Pictures
102 Dalmatians is a horrible sequel to what was a good
storyline with the original Disney film.
The film opens with the evil dog snatcher Cruella De
Vil (Close) being rehabilitated to love puppies, not hate
them or wanting to kill them.
She is psychiatrically reevaluated and paroled from
prison. Her parole officer is Chloe (Evans), who is
the owner of the Dalmatian Dipstick.
Her pet was one of the many Dalmatian puppies that
Cruella tried to make a fur coat out of in the first film.
Chloe doesn’t trust Cruella’s suddenly sweet ways and
tries to keep her dogs a distance away from her.
One thing leads to another and Cruella snaps back into
her old self. With the help of a fur fashion designer named
Jean Pierre (Depardieu), she plans to steal Dipstick’s newborn
puppies and many other Dalmatians to make the fur coat that
she has been yearning for a long time.
102 Dalmatians is not an enjoyable family film at all. There is absolutely no flow or much of anything
in it except a few cute dogs.
Kevin Lima tries, but poorly directs the film.
The most aggravating part of this film is how many
times Lima uses computer-generated Dalmatians.
I can understand him using the technology on objective
shots of all 102 of the Dalmatians, but not on single close
ups. An example is
the only Dalmatian without spots named Oddball.
Oddball is computer generated most of the time throughout
the film, I could tell by seeing an outline around her mouth
and ears. This whole aspect just seemed ridiculous to me. What is going to happen next, will films have
computer generated extras, which are more expensive to make
than to pay actors. Well
I take that back, we have already seen computer generated
extras in films and I believe we see more as the future approaches.
Kristen Buckley’s script for the film isn’t much better. The writer doesn’t even come close to capturing the magic of Dodie
Smith’s original story of the Dalmatians and Cruella De Vil. The script just gets out of hand and reflected
to be screaming for rewrites.
Also, Buckley decided to bring in a parrot character
that talks all the time and thinks he is a dog.
This character is very annoying and substantially unoriginal. Her script also seemed to be rushed and thrown
together in a matter of weeks.
Glenn Close once again serves well as the intimidating
and evil Cruella De Vil. However, with the first film, the talent actress
had more to work with, she does what she can with this performance. Newcomer Alice Evans seems to hold her on well
as actress with her performance as Chloe.
The true lackluster of the cast is an actor that a
usually like named Gerard Depardieu.
He plays the loud fashion designer named Jean Pierre,
who plans to help Cruella create her Dalmatian coat.
Honestly, Depardieu just overdoes the role with an
annoying fake roar of laughter.
Like I said before, I really didn’t like 102 Dalmatians,
I thought it lacked a lot of precision.
Will kids watch it? Maybe so, the dogs are so adorable, when they
are real.
Report Card Grade: D
Beastman’s
Movie Reviews
Copyright,
2000 Joseph C. Tucker
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