101 DALMATIANS. Directed by Stephen Herek; written by John Hughes; produced by John Hughes and Ricardo Mestres for Walt Disney. Starring Glenn Close, Jeff Daniels and Joely Richardson. Rated G.
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This live-action 101 Dalmatians won't replace the animated classic. But it's a nice complement to it.
When my kids were younger we must have listened to the booktape from the older movie thousands of times. But if you aren't that familiar with the story....
Two Dalmatians, living in London, fall in love and convince their owners, Roger and Anita, to do the same. When the happy union produces offspring (puppies, that is) an acquaintance of Anita's, Cruella DeVil, offers to buy them. She plans to pool their fur with that of other pups she's acquired to make—shudder—a coat.
When Roger and Anita won't sell, Cruella resorts to extra-legal means to get the puppies. After a brief period as kidnap victims, the 99 Dalmatian pups are rescued by Roger and Anita's dogs (99+2=101, get it?) and Cruella and her henchmen get their comeuppance.
With a few minor exceptions (the main characters' occupations, for example) the storyline here is identical. And the characters look for all the world like live-action versions of their cartoon counterparts.
Especially the most improbable one, Cruella (Close). She is, if anything, even more outlandish here than she was in the cartoon. Her costume designer, set designer, and even hair stylist obviously had great fun with the character, as does Close. And the result is a classic comic villain that practically makes the whole movie worth seeing single-handedly.
She gets some entertaining help from her partners in crime (Hugh Laurie and Mark Williams). But, as in the original version, Roger (Daniels) and Anita (Richardson) suffer from a common fate of good guys: they're much less interesting than the villains.
The dogs, young and old, however, more than make up for the blandness of their owners. Shooting this movie must have been a logistical nightmare (although SOME of the puppies on screen at some points are computer simulations), but the filmmakers managed to get the story told, and told entertainingly, without having the dogs talk, as they did in the cartoon. Brace yourself for demands for new puppies, parents, and be aware that you might be more favorably inclined than you might otherwise have been after you see 101 Dalmatians.
The movie's G rating is a pretty good indicator of its suitability for younger viewers. Except for a couple of brief scenes when it looks like the puppies might be done for, there is little to frighten even the youngest moviegoers here. Cruella is so outlandish, and her henchmen so broadly comic, that no one could have any real anxiety that they might actually win in the end.
December 11, 1996