Movies
[Review] Disney’s ‘Cruella’ Succeeds Only as a High Energy Fashion Show
Disney’s latest live-action muddles its villain’s rebranding and rings hollow.
Disney’s ongoing quest to refresh their catalog with live-action updates continues with a peculiar choice to retcon aspiring puppy killer Cruella De Vil. It worked pretty well for Maleficent, after all. Cruella overstuffs itself with an epic soundtrack, high couture glam-punk style, and a talented cast led by two endlessly charming leads to give the eponymous character a sympathetic makeover along her path to villainy. Despite everything it has working in its favor, Disney’s latest live-action film muddles its villain’s rebranding and rings hollow.
Cruella begins from the very beginning, with young skunk-haired Estella wreaking havoc at school to the point of expulsion. Her single mother’s attempts to fund their relocation to the city results in a tried-and-true Disney trope; Estella finds herself an orphan and alone on the streets. Then she meets fellow street urchins, Jasper and Horace, and the trio forges an expert con artist system. That is until the now-grown Estella’s (Emma Stone) fashion designs catch the eye of mogul Baroness von Hellman (Emma Thompson), setting a series of events in motion that will cause Estella to embrace her wicked side. Luckily, she’ll find help along the way from Jasper (Joel Fry), Horace (Paul Walter Hauser), and their two adorable pups.
Everything about the opening sequences zipping through Estella’s childhood screams of cartoon antics aimed at a much younger audience. It’s a strange choice, considering the narrative shifts into something far more adult once Estella and friends reach maturity. That doesn’t mean that it’s not prone to some laughable choices, particularly in the way screenwriters Dana Fox and Tony McNamara bend over backward to course-correct Cruella’s reputation for dog murder. Step one, present emotional reasons why Estella would despise Dalmatians. Step two, give her a henchman in the form of one cute and mostly VFX rendered terrier. She’s even close with Jasper and Horace’s one-eyed Chihuahua. See? She loves dogs, after all!
It’s all very silly, which would belong in a movie aimed toward kids, except Estella’s transition into Cruella is rife with murder plots, scandals, and random bursts of mean-spiritedness. It’s a disjointed mix between lighthearted fun and serious emotional plot points that make it unclear who’s the target audience. Despite the intent to trace Estella’s steps toward her 1961 animated iteration, her journey is erratic at best. That the simple story gets stretched out so long means Cruella overstays its welcome.
While the narrative fails to make a case for itself, Cruella succeeds at style and spectacle. The production and costume design is lavish and jaw-dropping. The ’70s London set-pieces and high couture fashion moments effectively wow. Many seemingly draw from horror; a late costume by the Baroness emulates Bride of Frankenstein. It’s enhanced by the endless barrage of needle drops that showcases the ’60s-’80s glam rock and punk offerings; the music essentially defines this movie’s identity. As a high-energy but low stakes fashion show, Cruella nails it.
Everyone brings their A-game to material that doesn’t meet their level. Director Craig Gillespie delivers a visual and aural feast that can sweep you away in its excess. Stone and Thompson bring compelling complexity to one-note characters, and the movie is at its best when they’re playing off each other. Cruella offers plenty of in-jokes to the original Disney animated classic, including a small appearance by Dalmatian owner Roger (What We Do in the Shadow’s Kayvan Novak), but they often get shoehorned in haphazardly. Gillespie helms a stunning showcase of talent that culminates in a striking feature, but it’s narratively hollow. Disney villains tend to make for excellent gateways into darker genre material, but Cruella ultimately makes its villainess toothless.
Cruella releases in select theaters and Disney+ with Premier Access on May 28, 2021.
Judging from the unprecedented box office success of Kane Parsons’ Backrooms adaptation, you’ve likely already seen the liminal horror hit that managed to make audiences afraid of empty hallways and bad wallpaper. And now that so many of us have already entered the yellow labyrinth (some of us more than once), the time has come to discuss the spoiler-filled details that make the movie so fascinating in the first place.
And if there’s one element here that makes the Backrooms movie stand out from any previous lore/mythology, it has to be the genius addition of the Still Life entities. Warped recreations of real people that somehow wandered into the Complex, these misremembered creatures are responsible for some of the most disturbing imagery of 2026 – as well as laugh-out-loud memes created by one of the film’s very own concept artists.
However, true to Parsons’ word that the movie would rely heavily on practical effects, each of these distorted monsters was brought to life by real actors under heavy layers of makeup and prosthetics (with the occasional splash of CGI enhancements). While Anora and If I Had Legs I’d Kick You actress Ivy Wolk wasn’t among these performers, despite what Letterboxd might have you believe, the creature cast did benefit from veteran players with plenty of genre experience.
For starters, Alien: Romulus alumni Robert Bobroczkyi (who previously brought that film’s horrific Offspring to life during its most memorable sequence) plays the flick’s main antagonist, the Still Life version of Captain Clark. And though there was some obvious CGI involved in making the character’s peg-leg and nightmarish face more believable, Bobroczkyi’s monstrous performance and his natural 7’7″ frame helped to make that final chase sequence a clear highlight among this year’s genre offerings.
The film’s Texas-Chain-Saw-inspired “dinner” scene also features a freaky collection of less-aggressive Still Life creatures in the form of the Bearded Man, the Red-Headed Woman and, strangest of them all, the cheekily named “Archibald Leland Sutter Still Life” (who earned this title among fans and crewmembers as a reference to his apparent affinity for lamps).
While this was the first major horror outing for both Patrick Baynham (The Bearded Man) and Dana Mahmood (Archibald), Rhiannon Roberts has worked as a stunt performer in everything from Yellowjackets to HBO’s The Last of Us adaptation – which is probably why The Red-Headed Woman is the most active out of Clark’s impromptu “family.” That being said, the Archibald Leland Sutter Still Life is my personal favorite of the bunch simply because his anachronistic outfit suggests that the Backrooms phenomenon might be a lot older than the Async Foundation. I also love how hard he tries to be helpful with that little light of his!
That might be it for the Still Life entities, but I think horror fans will also be pleased to hear that the film’s Found Footage prologue stars none other than Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City star Avan Jogia as Naren Warne – and American Mary herself Katharine Isabelle also shows up in a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it cameo at Mary’s house party towards the middle of the story (though I have a feeling that she originally had a bigger part that was likely cut for time).
At the end of the day, Parsons’ Backrooms may have been an auteur-driven project motivated by the young director’s unique take on the classic creepypasta, but film has always been a collective artform, so it’s fun to see just how many talented performers it takes to bring this kind of supernatural nightmare to life in a way that connects with so many people.
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