Cruella

Isn’t it great when you see a film that delivers on the expectation, when going in you know it could have gone either way?

Mad Max: Fury Road delivered in spades, as did Blade Runner 2049, Star Wars: The Force Awakens and Joker. Following on from that latter masterpiece, and perhaps more surprising than the rest, is Disney’s Cruella.

What could have been an easy cash-grab, back-to-the-cinema-or-watch-on-Disney+-for-a-small-fortune extension of their recent villain revival and live-action scatter-gunning is instead a stylish, eloquent, masterfully made origin story for a character who, in the 1961 cartoon, has far less screen time than you may remember (and, let’s not forget, is pretty much presented as a madcap dog killer and nothing else.)

I’m not sure what lit the spark for this whole villain-centric thing (The Phantom Menace? Despicable Me? Suicide Squad?! Come to think about it, surely these should have killed the idea dead long ago) but it’s a tricky concept. Villains are invariably the coolest characters (the costumes, the vehicles, the lairs) but watching them do mundane things lessens their impact. This is what brings Birds Of Prey down a peg or two and only Joker has really ever emerged entirely unscathed.

Cruella, though, gets it just about spot on. We get an origin that fits, all the malevolence and flamboyance that we need and all boxed up nice and neatly to, just about, fit in with the original (you’ve gotta forgive some timeline lapses and slight shoehorning – particularly the post-credits scene.)

Ok, so it could be darker, and it’s not at the ‘masterpiece’ level I mentioned at the top of the review but, considering everything they could have done, the fact that this entertains so much has to be considered a triumph.

The two Emma's (Stone and Thompson) chew scenery for fun and blow everyone else (and there’s a lot of top draw talent here in comparatively small roles) off the screen and, although there’s an argument to be made that Thompson’s Baroness is perhaps more villainous than needed, her tongue is wedged firmly in cheek with some rip-roaringly funny sequences.

Some will no doubt accuse Stone’s accent of being a little OTT but I feel it works perfectly for the general ‘style-over-substance’, slightly cartoony and insular mood of the whole thing. There’s some brilliant action sequences and a soundtrack for the ages.

The Dev-il Wears Prada it well may be, but this is a genuine triumph for Disney and I, for one, hope they follow on from the post-credits scene and give this the sequel/remake it (surprisingly) deserves. Whether that will revert back into Disney’s ‘safe, pantomime-y rinse and repeat’ pattern, though, remains to be seen.

4 stars ****