Warning, major spoilers. 

The Cruella movie hit theaters in May 2021, and while it did decent at the box office, it is still just an okay movie. It shows the story of a young Cruella De Vil. While as a stand alone it is an enjoyable film, the actors did a good job expressing and telling this story, as a villain origin story it adds continuity errors and hurts the story of its predecessor. It tries its best to make things continue but, with how things end, it does not set up for the original movie 101 Dalmatians, as well as it hopes too. 

The story of Estella to Cruella would have been better as a stand alone because of this issue. It is a charming story, do not get me wrong. Overthrowing a corrupt fashion baroness and assuming a new identity and continuing to do so, is a wonderful idea and is a well thought out stand alone story. The problem only lies with it being a villain story, she’s not made out to be the villain at all, and while she gives the original dalmations for the start of 101 Dalmatians, after that it does not really make sense for her to be the villain of that story. Movies like Maleficent or stories like Wicked do not mess with the storyline of the original, they still are the villains in their story when the timeline is taking place. The original Cruella in the movies is old and a bit crazy. With how the timeline plays out that is also an issue. Why would she want the puppies back if she gave the dogs away to begin with? It does not make sense to me. 

Now again stand alone this is a very charming story with interesting characters and a good plot behind it. Emma Stone did an amazing job portraying this character. Writing a character with a mean streak while also being so goal oriented that details get lost can be a hard character to work with. She did so wonderfully. It’s an enjoyable movie. It has a nice soundtrack, the cinematography is nicely done and well framed. The CGI is well done and almost looks practical in some parts, while others it’s blatantly there, but what else can you do with dog actors? Which said four legged actors did a good job. Again the characters are endearing and well thought out. 

Again my only real issue with this movie is how it ends, and the fact that it is an origin movie. Disney has shown they can do a well written origin, like they did with Maleficent, while not making her evil completely, but making her do what happened in the story while still adding redeeming qualities and making it so she is not just evil. But with Cruella, it feels like they redeemed her too far, and took away the thing that made her a villain, the fact she wanted to make puppies into a coat. They took that and instead made it so she used a fabric that looked like the dogs. While this is better for their younger audience it removes what made the villain scary in the first place. With this character I cannot see this version of the character doing anything like the original source material had her do. I am proud of Disney making something semi original with this story, the take does not work with the original material. Keeping the dalmations that killed my mother does not make much sense to me either. While it was the baroness’s doing, keeping them feels wrong somehow. It’s an odd origin story for the crazy old lady we grew up with.