101 Dalmatians - Live-Action Film Series Retrospective

Over the past few years, I’ve spent a lot of time discussing Disney’s recent line of live-action remakes of their iconic animated films. However, what some Disney fans might not realize is that while 2010’s Alice in Wonderland is generally considered to be the film that started this current trend for the studio, it technically wasn’t the first time that a live-action Disney remake was made. Instead, that honor goes to 1994’s Rudyard Kipling’s The Jungle Book, which was released 22 years before Jon Favreau’s big-budget reimagining of Disney’s 1967 animated classic in 2016. However, for the purpose of today’s retrospective, we’ll be focusing on the other major live-action Disney remake that was made in the ’90s, 101 Dalmatians. It all began, of course, with Disney’s 1961 adaptation of author Dodie Smith’s The Hundred and One Dalmatians. Upon its release, the film proved to be the much-needed hit that the studio needed after 1959’s Sleeping Beauty ended up being a bit of a commercial dud for them. Part of the reason why was due to One Hundred and One Dalmatians sporting a much smaller budget by comparison thanks in large part to a new animation process known as xerography. Developed by Walt Disney’s long-time collaborator Ub Iwerks, this system allowed for the direct transfer of the animators’ drawings to animation cels, thus avoiding the inking step of the classic ink-and-paint process, and while this method did result in the film’s animation not being as polished as other Disney films, it was exactly what the studio needed to keep production costs down. And with an overall lifetime gross of around $303 million worldwide (a total that skyrockets up to over $936 million when adjusted for inflation) and strong reviews from critics, One Hundred and One Dalmatians still stands as one of Disney Animation’s most highly acclaimed films.

But for many people, one of the biggest reasons for the film’s success was its legendary main antagonist, Cruella de Vil, a sinister heiress who kidnaps all but two of the titular 101 Dalmatians so that she can use their fur for coats. Since then, Cruella has easily been one of Disney’s most iconic villains, and sure enough, when it comes to the original film’s live-action remake, many would agree that the best thing about it is Cruella herself, portrayed by the legendary Glenn Close. In fact, I think it’s safe to say that for an entire generation or two, Glenn Close’s take on Cruella de Vil is generally regarded as the definitive interpretation of the character. But this week, we have ourselves a new spin on the iconic villainess as Emma Stone takes on the role in Disney’s latest live-action reimagining, Cruella, a prequel-style story that delves into the events that made Cruella de Vil… well, Cruella de Vil. Glenn Close will still be involved, however, as an executive producer, and so, in honor of the new film’s release, today we’ll be looking at the two films that gave us just one of the numerous iconic performances in Close’s career; the 1996 live-action remake of 101 Dalmatians and its 2000 sequel, 102 Dalmatians. Now, as per usual with these franchise-based retrospectives that I do, we’ll only be focusing on theatrically released films, which means that we won’t be covering any other installments of the 101 Dalmatians franchise. This includes both of its animated TV shows (the 90’s series created by Doug creator Jim Jinkins and the newer 101 Dalmatian Street), the direct-to-video sequel 101 Dalmatians II: Patch’s London Adventure, or Cruella’s appearances in shows like Once Upon a Time and the first Descendants film. And so, without further ado, it’s time to start playing Roger Radcliffe’s classic song that reminds us that “if she doesn’t scare you, no evil thing will” as we look at one of Disney’s initial attempts at making a live-action remake out of their animated filmography.

But first, just for fun, let’s go over the original…

ONE HUNDRED AND ONE DALMATIANS (ANIMATED – 1961)

As longtime visitors of this site will no doubt recall, I covered this film back in 2016 in the 1960s/1970s installment of my Disney Retrospective series. Back then, I noted that I found the film to be solidly entertaining even though I admittedly found its second half, when Pongo and Perdita head out to rescue their puppies, to be better than its first half. And when I ranked all 55 of the then-currently released films made by Walt Disney Animation Studios (this was right before the release of Moana, for the record), I ended up placing it right around the middle of the list at #34. Upon my most recent re-watch of the film for the purposes of this retrospective, I found that my thoughts on it hadn’t changed too much. That said, though, while I still think that the film’s best moments come in its second half since that’s where many of the best humorous bits occur thanks in large part to Cruella and her bumbling henchmen Horace and Jasper, I’m a lot more positive about the first half of the film than I was a few years ago. At the very least, it does have its moments and it does a nice job of setting everything up (the relationships of both Roger and Anita and their dogs Pongo and Perdita, building up Cruella and her evil plans, etc.). And despite the whole thing about the xerography method of animation producing much less refined visuals compared to other Disney films, I think that this film’s animation is still quite good, for the most part, as it helps give it a charmingly old-fashioned look that fits in nicely with the story’s London setting. With all this in mind, it’s easy to see why the original Hundred and One Dalmatians is still widely considered to be one of Disney’s most beloved films. While it may not be one of my ‘top’ favorite Disney films, there’s no denying that it’s a delightful comedic romp headlined by an unforgettable villain and that indisputable Disney charm.

Rating: 4/5

101 DALMATIANS (LIVE-ACTION – 1996)

Looking at this film in 2021 after all the other live-action Disney remakes that have been made since then, one of the first things that comes to mind is how relatively modest it is as a remake. Basically, just like what the remakes of Beauty and the Beast and Aladdin did, this one presents a straightforward retelling of the original where the biggest changes are cosmetic in nature, such as Roger being a video game designer instead of a musician and Cruella being Anita’s boss rather than her old schoolmate. And unlike nowadays where it’s more common to see filmmakers using CGI animals to avoid getting into any situations that could put real animals in harm’s way, this film utilized as many real dogs as it could with only a few instances of CGI and some animatronics from Jim Henson’s Creature Shop. Really, it’s sort of more interesting to note some of the folks who worked on this film behind the scenes such as director Stephen Herek, who made the first Bill and Ted film and had become a regular director at Disney at that point with films like The Mighty Ducks and Mr. Holland’s Opus, and writer/producer John Hughes. Yes, this was one of many projects that Hughes worked on in the ’90s, although admittedly, this was at a point where many critics felt that his work was starting to delve into more juvenile territory given the overly slapsticky nature of most of them. And yet, while this film certainly has some of those moments, I don’t think they’re as apparent as they are in some of his other 90’s films. In short, the live-action 101 Dalmatians is a lot like its animated counterpart. The second half is better than the first, Cruella is still a delightfully over-the-top villainess, and Jasper and Horace (played here by Hugh Laurie and Mark Williams, respectively) are just as hilariously bumbling as ever. Overall, I consider this to be one of the weaker live-action Disney remakes because it doesn’t do as much as some of the others to truly differentiate itself from the original, but it’s still a solid watch, especially if you’re amongst the crowd that grew up with it in the late ’90s.  

Rating: 3.5/5

102 DALMATIANS (2000)

Despite its mixed reception, the live-action remake of 101 Dalmatians was a major success at the box office, grossing over $320.7 million worldwide. Thus, a sequel was put into development soon after with most of the primary production crew returning save for John Hughes since the studio that he formed with Disney, Great Oaks Entertainment, ended up shutting down in 1997. It also saw a notable change in director since, just like Stephen Herek, Kevin Lima is another filmmaker who’s done quite a lot of films with Disney over the years. This is, after all, the same director who made one of the biggest cult classics of the ’90s, A Goofy Movie, co-directed the final ‘Disney Renaissance’ film, Tarzan, with Frozen’s Chris Buck, and helmed 2007’s live-action/animated smash hit Enchanted. And yet, while John Hughes may not have been involved with this film, 102 Dalmatians is, ironically, the much sillier of the two, thus tying into the whole thing that I mentioned earlier about Hughes’ work taking on a campier tone in the ’90s. Simply put, a film that includes, among other things, a talking bird named Waddlesworth (voiced by Eric Idle) that believes he’s a dog can get incredibly damn goofy at times. But while this does mean that the film is basically geared more towards younger audiences, it’s still a decently entertaining family flick that has its charming moments. Plus, whereas the first film’s strict structural adherence to the plot of the original animated film meant that Glenn Close had a more limited screen-time than those who haven’t seen it might expect, this one gives Cruella a more prominent role in the story, thus giving us more of Close’s delightfully over-the-top antics.

But to me, one of the most unique aspects of this film… is the fact that I have more of a history with it than I do with its predecessor. A few years back when I did a retrospective on Disney’s Honey, I Shrunk the Kids franchise, I noted that I technically had more experience with that franchise’s direct-to-video sequel Honey, We Shrunk Ourselves than I did the original Honey I Shrunk the Kids since the former frequently aired on Disney Channel. As for the original, my first proper viewing of it… was when I watched it for that retrospective. And yes, folks, we have an eerily similar situation with these live-action Dalmatians films. While I do believe that there’s a strong possibility that I did watch the first film when I was younger (even though I honestly can’t remember at this point), I watched 102 Dalmatians quite a lot back then. Granted, I don’t exactly recall seeing it in theaters (again, maybe I did, I don’t know…) but it was one of the first films that I distinctly remember owning on DVD along with its video game tie-in for the Game Boy Color, 102 Dalmatians: Puppies to the Rescue. So, with that in mind, I’ll admit that there may be some nostalgia-based bias when it comes to my thoughts on this film given everything that I just talked about, but overall, I think that 102 Dalmatians is a genuinely harmless follow-up that’s largely on par with its predecessor. Like I said before, though, this is also one of those instances where younger audiences will most likely get more enjoyment out of it than adults.

Rating: 3.5/5

And that concludes Rhode Island Movie Corner’s retrospective on the live-action 101 Dalmatians films (plus a quick reappraisal of the 1961 animated classic). Admittedly, it will be a little while before I publish my review of Cruella given the current backlog of posts that I’m working on, but I promise that it will come eventually. Until then, thanks for following along and be sure to sound off in the comments below with your own personal memories of these films.

TODAY'S RETROSPECTIVE HAS BEEN BROUGHT TO YOU BY KANINE KRUNCHIES!

Fantastic Four (1994, 2005, 2007) Film Series Retrospective

We are currently in the golden age of superhero films and Marvel is right at the forefront of this comic book revolution. Thanks to the Marvel Cinematic Universe along with films produced by other studios like Fox and Sony, many of Marvel’s iconic characters have graced the big-screen to solid success, from Iron Man to Spider-Man to the X-Men to even lesser-known characters like the Guardians of the Galaxy and Ant-Man. But not every superhero has had a successful run on the big screen and probably the most infamous example of this has been the Fantastic Four. Despite being arguably one of the most famous superhero groups in not just the Marvel Universe but of all-time, their track record on film has been fairly mediocre at best, especially when compared with their fellow Marvel heroes like Spider-Man or the Avengers. The upcoming ‘Fantastic Four’ film, directed by Josh Trank, will be the third major attempt at bringing Marvel’s ‘First Family’ to the big-screen after two previous attempts in the past failed to attract much success. One film in particular didn’t even make it to theaters and the two that did are generally considered to be some of the weakest superhero films of their era. And today we’ll be looking at all three of those films. Yes I will be looking at not only the 2005 ‘Fantastic Four’ and its 2007 sequel but also the 1994 low-budget version that was ultimately never released in theaters. Here’s hoping that the new ‘Fantastic Four’ film will finally break this curse of this unlucky superhero film franchise.

THE FANTASTIC FOUR (1994)

Before the two ‘Fantastic Four’ films that we are all familiar with ever came out, and before Marvel was even the film powerhouse that it is today, there was actually a different ‘Fantastic Four’ film that even predates the 2005 film. This particular film was produced in 1994 by B-movie king Roger Corman and directed by music video director Oley Sassone. Never heard of it? Well, there’s actually a rather legitimate reason for this. For you see, this film never got a theatrical release, despite it being promoted in theaters at the time and the announcement of a planned world premiere at the Mall of America on January 19, 1994. Apparently the reasoning behind this move was that the film was never actually intended to be shown in theaters and was just produced so that producer Bernd Eichinger (who would go on to produce the following two officially released ‘Fantastic Four’ films) could retain the rights to the characters, though Eichinger himself denied these claims and instead claimed that Marvel stepped in because they didn’t want the film to ‘ruin the franchise’. Regardless of which story is true, most of the cast and crew were left completely unaware of this and in that regard, I do feel bad for them in this situation, having to ‘learn the hard way’ that the film they had all worked so hard on would never get to see the light of day. Unlike the 1990 ‘Captain America’ film, which was also never released in theaters but was released on home video, this film has never seen an official release outside of bootleg recordings on the internet.

To the credit of the cast and crew, if anything it looks like they at least tried their best with the limited resources that they had. This film only had a budget of around $2 million, and just about half of that budget went solely into developing the costuming for ‘The Thing’. But with that said, yes you could definitely tell that this is a very low-budget flick as far as superhero films are concerned based on certain elements of the production design and the visuals, or lack thereof in some cases. There’s seriously a ‘fight scene’ (and I use that term loosely) between the Thing and some of Dr. Doom’s henchmen which just consists of the camera rapidly spinning around to ‘simulate’ the action before cutting to the ‘aftermath’. And I’m pretty sure that the one major action sequence in which Johnny Storm is in full Human Torch mode recycles the exact same visual cues of an old ‘Superman’ cartoon from the 1940’s. Also there apparently wasn’t any major ADR work done for Dr. Doom because whenever he talks, he’s more unintelligible than Bane from ‘The Dark Knight Rises’. And finally, speaking of this iteration of Dr. Doom, he is easily the weakest villain in superhero film history as he lacks any sort of intimidation factor and repeatedly gets his plans foiled and his butt kicked by the Fantastic Four. Sure he may have a solid connection to the Fantastic Four being Reed Richards’ old friend from college, Victor Von Doom, but that doesn’t change the fact that he is just a wuss of a villain. Seriously, even Malekith from ‘Thor 2’ wasn’t as bad as him.

Ultimately, this ‘Fantastic Four’ is very cheesy and even a bit overly melodramatic at times, which partially stems from the film’s rather over-bearing score. But despite all of that, for some strange reason, I actually recommend you checking this film out at least once in your life (heck, I’ll even provide a link to it below). Let me be clear, it is by no means ‘good’ but similar to the legendary stinker ‘Batman and Robin’, it actually turns out to be one of those ‘so bad it’s hilarious’ films, namely due to the aforementioned ‘oddities’ that I mentioned earlier. And for what it’s worth, the four main leads in the film who play the Fantastic Four (technically 5 if you count the fact that Thing is played by two different actors); Alex Hyde-White, Rebecca Staab, Jay Underwood, and Michael Bailey Smith (Carl Ciarfalio plays ‘the Thing’) are fine enough in their respective roles. But ultimately I’d only recommend this film if you’re really interested in checking out an odd little part of cinematic superhero history; a low-budget superhero film that never got released to theaters and can only be viewed through bootleg-quality copies on the internet. Seriously, they released that godawful ‘Captain America’ film from the 90’s on Blu-Ray recently (I’ll get to that one someday) so why hasn’t this ‘Fantastic Four’ film gotten the same treatment? I’m serious, I think the time has come to give this film a proper home video release instead of just having it be viewable only on the internet and in rather piss-poor quality. In fact, dare I say that there is more heart to this ‘Fantastic Four’ film than the films that actually got released in theaters? That folks… is saying something.

Rating: 1.5/5

(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SHlBsLQ4BQs)

FANTASTIC FOUR (2005)

One whole decade after the 1994 ‘Fantastic Four’ film incident, producer Bernd Eichinger finally brought Marvel’s First Family to the big screen with 2005’s ‘Fantastic Four’, directed by Tim Story. The film was a solid hit at the box office, ultimately making about 3.3 times its original budget. However, the film itself fared poorly with critics and most audiences. As for me, I’ll admit that I don’t necessarily ‘hate’ this film compared to many others on the internet and while I hate using this term, I guess you can say this is sort of a ‘guilty pleasure’ for me. Still, this is definitely one of the weaker superhero films of the early 2000’s. It sort of shares a major similarity with the 2003 ‘Daredevil’ film in that it very much feels like a Hollywoodized superhero film in terms of execution, which seems to have been the major pattern for most of Fox’s Marvel flicks up until the X-Men series got itself back on track in 2011 with ‘X-Men: First Class’. In fact, for a superhero film, ‘Fantastic Four’ is actually rather light on superhero action. There are only about two to three major action sequences in the entire film and most of the run-time is instead focusing on scenes of the main characters talking and placing a lot of emphasis on humor that quite frankly comes off as being way too goofy. To anyone who complains about the Marvel Cinematic Universe films being way too focused on humor, trust me when I say that at least they’ve never gone ‘this far’.         

As far as casting is concerned, the film is about 50-50 in terms of its casting choices. The two biggest standouts are Chris Evans, before he took on another famous Marvel hero, Captain America, in, to be perfectly blunt, much better films, as the Human Torch and Michael Chiklis as Thing (also props to the filmmakers for sticking with practical make-up effects in order to bring Thing to life). Both do solid jobs in capturing their characters’ personalities and despite what I said earlier about the film’s over-reliance on humor, the back-and-forth camaraderie between them is actually one of the better aspects of the film. Heck, I’d also argue that Ioan Gruffudd was actually a solid choice for Mr. Fantastic even though he really could’ve benefitted more from a better script. But as for Jessica Alba as the Invisible Woman, this is definitely one of the biggest miscastings in superhero film history. In fact, this feels much more like stunt-casting given how much emphasis is placed on her sex appeal instead of any of the things that made the Invisible Woman such a great character in the comics. Julian McMahon is also majorly miscast as Dr. Doom. I may not have read much of the ‘Fantastic Four’ comics, but I definitely tell that the Doom of this film series shares little similarities with the Doom from the comics. All in all, though, I’ll admit that I still find this film to be fairly entertaining in parts and I don’t think that it’s the absolute worst superhero film of the era. But with that said, this is also by no means one of the genre’s best. Compared to other superhero films of the time like the first two ‘Spider-Man’ and ‘X-Men’ films, this is a much more ‘by-the-numbers’ superhero flick which definitely must have been majorly disappointing for fans of the franchise.

Rating: 3/5

FANTASTIC FOUR: RISE OF THE SILVER SURFER (2007)

So while the first ‘Fantastic Four’ film didn’t do so great with critics, it was successful enough to warrant a sequel in 2007 in ‘Rise of the Silver Surfer’. As the title suggests, this film, which surprisingly managed to warrant a PG rating after the first film was rated PG-13, introduces the iconic ‘Silver Surfer’, the herald of Galactus, the Devourer of Worlds. But like the previous film, this film also fared poorly with critics… but also like the previous film, I don’t think that this film is all that bad. In fact, I’d say it’s actually one of those rare sequels that actually manages to be better than the original, even if that’s not really saying much in the case of this franchise. It still carries quite a few of the same issues from the previous film, specifically the overly goofy attempts at humor and the hit or miss quality of the cast. Thankfully, though, this film does up the amount of action which was rather lacking in the first film. Because of that, this film also doesn’t drag as much at times like its predecessor did. And at the end of the day, the Silver Surfer (portrayed by Doug Jones but voiced by Laurence Fishburne) is definitely a major standout. But ultimately this film’s biggest downfall is how it portrays the character of Galactus. Instead of portraying him as the gigantic purple suit-wearing god-like character that comic book fans are all familiar with, he is instead turned into a giant cloud-like entity with a few fleeting visuals that resemble his look from the comics.

Now I’m not one to do many film comparisons but in the case of how Galactus is portrayed in this film, I feel that I must by comparing this infamous change to another infamous comic book film change; the ‘Mandarin’ fake-out from ‘Iron Man 3’. Obviously I’ve made it very clear in the past that I will always defend the ‘Mandarin’ twist because while it does go against how the character was portrayed in the comics, it actually worked well within the context of that film’s story. But the same cannot be said for Galactus in this film. There’s absolutely no reason story-wise for Galactus to look the way that he does in the film. Really, the only major reason I can figure as to why Galactus is portrayed like this is because the filmmakers couldn’t really come up with a way of having him look like he does in the comics without it being too silly. Though at the end of the day, I can’t really blame them that much for this because quite frankly even I can’t see how one can do this character justice on the big-screen without making some changes to his character design. So like with the first ‘Fantastic Four’, I’ll admit that I actually do like ‘Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer’. Again it is by no means the ‘best’ superhero film ever made. It makes one of the worst ‘character changes’ in superhero film history and it still carries some of its predecessor’s glaring issues. But at the same time I don’t think that it is ‘terrible’ and if I had to choose between this and the first film, ultimately I prefer this film as it does benefit from better pacing and more action.

Rating: 3.5/5