Two years ago, Disney released a highly anticipated live-action film: Cruella. When the news first dropped about the studio making an origin story focusing on the popular Disney film, many felt that a Cruella De Vil story was unnecessary. Then the trailer was revealed. Immediately, audiences were excited because it reminded them of Todd Philips’ Joker.
Then Cruella officially made its way into theaters and Disney Plus. It turned out to be a bland origin story. The issue itself has nothing to do with the fact that it was nothing like Joker. That’s a good thing because Cruella should have its own identity. The missed opportunity comes from the film never truly justifying its existence. Cruella failed to take any true risks with its story and characters, which is a shame because the prequel could’ve been so much more.
Cruella Never Revelled In The Badness of Its Title Character
Cruella De Vil is a woman who gleefully skins dogs in both animated and live-action films. It’s hard to make a redemption arc for her character because her actions are pretty heinous. Craig Gillespie seemed afraid to truly revel in the madness of such a villain. On one hand, a character of this nature must have a dimension that audiences can relate to. Cruella is a human as well. All humans feel different types of emotions such as love and pain, so documenting her innocence at such a young age was a wise choice.
However, the story falls into a generic trope the further it dives into the character’s origins. Cruella becomes another name in a long list of villains who’ve been bullied as a kid. The whole story about how she had poliosis in the middle of her head felt lazy. It could’ve been a clever benchmark in her character transformation from Estella to Cruella. In fact, Cruella should’ve shown how psychotic and warped her mind was as a young child.
The Sympathy Route Should’ve Been Dropped
Credit: @disneycruella
Had Gillespie tapped into that instead of going the sympathy route then it could’ve been something special. All of the greatest villains are pushed over the edge at one point. Arthur Fleck is a mentally unstable man who’s consistently beaten down in his everyday life. Walter White’s cancer diagnosis caused him to find a way to quickly find some cash to pay for his treatments.
That only woke up the beast within in his nature and he became a monster due to circumstance. Given the state of Cruella after the prequel, these two characters don’t feel the same. Cruella is calmly walking into her new house with the very same Dalmatians who killed her mother.
Despite the ending to Cruella’s story, Disney probably felt her character was too dark for the brand. The lack of a giant cigar could further prove that notion. Audiences simply needed to understand Cruella. That doesn’t mean she needed to be a sympathetic figure. We understand names like Walter White or Tony Soprano, despite them being deplorable human beings overall.
The Reasoning Behind Cruella’s Hatred For Dogs Was Bad
Credit: Cruella
Dogs can kill people. However, the ridiculous way the film goes about it is. Ultimately, three Dalmatians push Cruella’s mother off the cliff. It’s soon revealed that the Baroness was the mastermind behind that attack. The sequence in itself was incredibly silly, but that moment itself doesn’t drive home why she hates dogs. Cruella understands that the Dalmatians were only carrying out their orders from the Baroness.
Why would she have that misplaced anger on the dogs instead? The ending teases that she’ll start her obsession with using dogs as fur coats, but there’s never any sort of tension or drama regarding her relationship with the animals after the horrific incident. Cruella should’ve had a hatred for animals from the very beginning. If the film highlighted her psychopathic tendencies by being cruel or mean to animals then it would’ve been all the better for it.
Animal cruelty is dark and not something made for a brand that targets kids. However, this context would’ve suited the character much better than the reasoning given in the prequel.
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