Cruella Review: 5 Ups & 5 Downs

4. It Suffers From Chronic "Prequelitis"

Of all the Disney characters to give their own prequel movie, Cruella de Vil has to be one of the toughest to crack, and it shows. For starters, how do you endear a character to audiences who murders cute animals for her own gain?

Gillespie answers this by reconfiguring the character in a number of ways to make her more palatable for modern audiences, effectively neutering her hostility toward dalmatians and piling a tragic, twist-filled backstory on top.

Overall, the film clings so, so eagerly to the prequel movie formula, most criminally resulting in a customary, cringe-worthy scene where we learn the ham-fisted origin of Cruella's surname.

Through and through, it is a film that strains itself to explain why Cruella needs her own movie at all, or why we should care much about her.

If this new take needs to alter the character so thoroughly in order to make her appealing to audiences, isn't that better proof that this was the wrong route all along?