We watched it streaming on Disney+ last night. I was impressed with it.
The soundtrack is great, loads of hits from the 60s and a few from the 70s. The music is used well.
The Emmas did a great job with their roles. Emma Stone and Emma Thompson are almost always good anyway.
The movie was well paced at a 2:14 run time.
So it is set in 1970s London and shows you Cruella’s origin story.
Well I wasn’t planning on watching it but you have peeked my interest and I do have Disney.
We already knew she had a spotted past.
I liked it a lot. I have read some negative reviews where the complaint seemed to be “We liked Cruella as a two-dimensional flatly evil character. It sucks giving her any depth or complexity!!”. Criticisms like these are ridiculous. It was well done, lots of fun, amazing performances. Emma Thompson looked like she was having a ball! Trying out a new-fangled taser device on the servants: “I could do this all day!!” 
I concur 100% with this. I know it seemingly contradicts the original story everyone knows just a bit, but I would really be curious at what the 101 Dalmatians that follows this film would be like, it sure would need a fascinating new twist to it. I don’t think they have plans to do that, though.
Are you saying this one does NOT deserve the maximum Rotten Tomatoes? I saw a preview of the origin story and almost pissed myself laughing so hard. Does the rest of the movie do justice to the origin?
The clip that went around is very much out of context and being misinterpreted, and certainly doesn’t reflect the tone of the rest of the movie. It’s worth a watch, and you may very well be surprised.
Another thing that was a lot of fun: the costume design was incredible. Even the dogs had costumes! Sheer go-for-broke, over-the-top glee. And in addition to the Emmas, who were fabulous, the supporting cast were amazing as well. Even the dogs.
I didn’t see the clip so couldn’t say how it related to the movie.
I really liked the movie as well. The only thing I didn’t enjoy was low key anxiety throughout the movie that Buddy and / or Wink wouldn’t survive. They both did, so I was happy in the end.
Eldest China bambina is visiting for 2 weeks on a break after 3 years of film school in LA. They LOVE horrid movies such as Cats (saw that one multiple times in the theater). Maybe we will watch this one together sometime in the next week or so. That said, you make it sound like this one might not satisfy such a craving for rotten tomato-ish flicks?
Put it this way: For a lot of people, I am confident it will fit very appropriately into this thread:
Post credits did give us Pongo and Perdita. But they were gifts from Cruella. Roger was also writing THE song. Not sure how all that will work out (provided they even try, it might be nothing more than an Easter egg.).
I watched it on D+. I was a little annoyed I had to pay a premium. At the time, I thought I was just paying 2.99. it wasn’t till the next day I found out I paid 29.99!
That will teach me to order stuff without my glasses.
Anyway I liked it a lot more than I thought I would. And yes the soundtrack is one of the best I’ve heard in the long long time.
Cruella is on straight up Disney+ now (no additional charge). We watched it over the weekend and loved it.
As it is now on regular D+, I just got finished watching it. It was much better than it had any right to be. It didn’t really make much sense as the origin story for the character in 101 Dalmatians, but that’s ok, it was a genuinely entertaining movie on its own terms.
I’m not quite sure how they pulled this off, but they managed to mash up 101 Dalmatians, The Devil Wears Prada, The Italian Job, The Count of Monte Cristo, The Mod Squad, and a few other bits and pieces, and it all worked.
I am left wondering, though…
…were they intentionally self-parodying as a Disney movie with both a parent’s death to open the movie and a major character dying by plunging off of a cliff and combining those two often-mocked Disney tropes into one?
If so, it didn’t really fit the tone of the rest of the movie. If not, that’s kind of a bizarre lack of self-awareness in a movie that otherwise seems very aware of what it’s doing.
I felt it made Cruella more three dimensional without detracting in the least from the fact that she’s a certifiable sociopath.
I liked the movie on its own terms, but I don’t agree with this read. She’s not really sociopathic, nor is she a villain, even a complex one.
She takes what in real life would be extreme measures. But she’s not really violent, she doesn’t physically harm anyone, and she has the standard Hero Arc of becoming obsessed with her mission and shutting out the people who care about her, then backtracking, apologizing, and re-befriending her friends. She obviously actually cares about Jasper and Horace. And her dog. And Horace’s dog. And her adoptive mom. And even, eventually, the dalmatians.
My “complaint” isn’t that the movie gives depth and complexity to a villain, it’s that the Cruella in this movie isn’t a villain, and she’s simply a different character than the Cruella in the original animated movie.
Just to be clear, I put “complaint” in scare quotes because I don’t actually care about that issue - I enjoyed this movie on its own terms, and I didn’t care that it’s not actually in continuity with the animated movie it’s (very) loosely based on.
But if someone came into this movie expecting and wanting to see the origin story of the Cruella character that appears in 101 Dalmatians, I can definitely see why they’d be disappointed.
Saw it the other day and thought it was great. So much eye candy with the fantastic set pieces and costuming More memorable than the recently viewed Suicide Squad which was okay but forgot about a day later.
If I had any complaints they would be that a couple of my favorite supporting characters felt underdeveloped (Jasper, Artie), and that you could see the final cliff push twist coming from a mile away.