Cruella - Review | Disney Movies

Cruella is directed by Craig LFC, the man behind I, Tanya and Lars and the real girl a movie you should see if you've never seen it. It's so weird, and I love it.

The film is set in 1970s, a London amidst the punk rock revolution and it follows a young grifter named a Stella played by Emma Stone. She dreams of being a fashion designer, but she spends her days being a petty thief, but when Astellas flair for fashion catches the eye of Baroness von Hellman played by Emma Thompson, a fashion legend, their relationship sets in motion a course of events that will lead Estella to embrace her wicked side and become Cruella de Vil.

Look, I'm gonna be completely blunt. I didn't care about this movie at all. I didn't want to see it. I'm kind of done with Disney live action stuff. So many of them have been bad to mediocre. A couple of them are okay. And some of them are actually kind of good, but I just can't get excited for them anymore. I just I can't look forward to them anymore. And I don't know if it's because I'm becoming some old crusty sack. Or maybe they've just mostly been kind of bad lately, especially move on. And I knew nothing about the film.

I thought it was rated PG, but it's not as pG 13 I thought it was a super family movie. It's not it's got some dark shit in there. I just thought it was yet another Disney property. IP. And yeah, sure it is, you know, they're gonna probably make more if this is successful, but Craig LFC directs with a considerable amount of energy, sometimes too much energy. Actually, sometimes the scenes move too quickly. And it feels like he could have waited a little bit longer. But I mean, the movies already over two hours long. So I understand why it's as quick as it is. But the film moves surprisingly well. And it doesn't feel like any other Disney films to me.

I mean, of course, I mean, I'm not like extremely well versed in every movie they've ever released. But it felt more like the Devil Wears Prada with a darker tinge to it. And I really liked the Devil Wears Prada. And so I appreciated that this movie seemed like it was taking a few risks in that it does have some very dark stuff. There are some scenes that would greatly bother children.

There's death in it, and there's a considerable amount of implied violence. And I know that a lot of parents will probably not like a few scenes in the movie, but I thought they were fucking cool. Emma Stone is good. As Corella, I liked her quite a bit, I had to get away from the fact that I always associate Glenn Close with this character from live action. But she's very good in the film, I guess Glenn Close is actually a producer on the movie, which is kind of cool. But really the star of this movie and the person who steals every scene she's in is Emma Thompson.

I can imagine that having both of your leads named Emma was probably a little annoying on set. But she's amazing in the film. She is one of the best Disney villains in a long time. She is a ruthless, relentless, absolutely horrible human being the stuff that she does, and that it's implied that she has done is fucked up. And what works so well about the movie for me was the mentor student relationship between young Estella and Baroness von Hellman, the desperation and Stella trying to please her, trying to impress her with her designs and ideas for fashion.

It's something that really anyone can relate to, if you want to create something, and you're trying to impress people who are in positions of power that you feel you need to impress to do what you want to do for a living and the twists and turns the movie takes. Some of them I expected Absolutely. 100% there's a few things where I'm like, of course, yeah, obviously. But there was one thing that honestly, I did not expect. And I should have seen it coming, but I didn't. So that's good.

I mean, the movie had a pace to it, that was infectious. The costume design is also beautiful. There are some things that I am just always going to notice. They're always going to trigger something in me a memory of some kind that I'm always going to pay attention to. And one of those things is when golden I sound effects or sound effects that were used in GoldenEye 64 are in movies, and there is absolutely 100% A gasp from a female character when she's tased in this film, that is definitely this. Every time they use a sound effect that was in GoldenEye in a movie, I'm going to point it without a doubt but thing about the film that bothered me the most is it's incredibly aggressive soundtrack.

All the songs are obviously hit songs from the 70s but it's almost constant. It reminded me of suicide squad where songs were very heavily relied on to create a feel when at times the movie really didn't need to revert to a song but there are so many uses of classic songs from the era and it started to grate on my nerves a little bit because I felt like the movie was overly relying on that and Wasn't really creating its own tone or own feel sometimes and just hoping the songs would do all the heavy lifting. And there are plenty of things in the movie that I could see Disney purists getting upset about people who think that it has to lead into the animation in a specific way, or like something that she did in the cartoon has to be reflected here, or they change the thing, or they switch something around. And I don't like how they did that.

I can see that people who, who really want things to all stay the same and don't want to see anything new. I could see them getting upset by that. And with every Disney movie, there's always that part of me that's like, Oh, yeah, they're setting up something there. And that didn't really need to be in the movie, but they just shoehorn that shit in just for the sequels and for the IP. And there's always going to be parts of me that notice those things. But it happens, man, I mean, that's how a lot of these things get made.

You have to kind of convince someone else that there's potential for more development. And it's really hard to do that. Sometimes when you're trying to focus on making just one good movie. You can almost tell like, Oh, that's where somebody told jalopy to put a scene and he probably didn't want to do that. But that's in there now because he had to. I don't know, of course, I don't know if that's true. But there's just certain moments that feel like they're there because somebody told them to put it there.

But this movie surprised me. I mean, maybe it's because I had the lowest of the low expectations. And I just didn't really care to see the movie at all. And I'm actually going to recommend it. I think you guys should see it. It's going to be on Disney Plus, I believe, I don't know if they're doing that premiere thing or whatever. But also in theaters. It's a gorgeous looking movie, so it probably look amazing on the big screen. I'm gonna give Cruella A B minus.