101 Dalmatians (1996)

101 Dalmatians (1996)

6/10

Starring

Glenn Close

Jeff Daniels

Joely Richardson

Joan Plowright

Hugh Laurie

Directed by

It is not every day you get to see a movie filled with the warmth and joy of naivety – where thing so unlikely to happen, happens with the good people find each other, fall madly in love and get married. When such movies come along, with a screenplay tuned to almost perfection just the way the late John Hughes is known to do, you can but marvel at his work. Written and produced by John Hughes, this 1996 screenplay is based on Disney’s 1961 animation, 101 Dalmatians which was based on Dodie Smith’s 1956 novel, The Hundred and One Dalmatians. They decided to remove the talking dogs, the singing and in its place filled the movie with actions. Just have to respect the work done by the dog trainers, although the puppetry was not the best.

The movie is fantastic and no matter how old I get, seeing this movie any time of my life is always a welcome.

The movie plot places Roger (Jeff Daniel) as a video game maker (in the animation he wrote music) and Anita (Joely Richardson) works for Cruella (Glenn Close) in her fashion studio. Like in the animation Pongo (Roger’s dalmatian dog) spot Anita and her dalmatian in the park, he chased after them and many things led to something and both of them got married.

Now the two dogs are now expecting puppies, and gave birth to fifteen of them. Cruella shows up at their house and offers to by them all for a substantial amount of money, Roger and Anita refuses and Cruella left angry.

Cruella still wanting to have the puppies so she can make fur out of them, decided to hire Jasper (Hugh Laurie) and his partner Horace to steal and get as many Dalmatian puppies they could find, including that of Roger and Anita. How the animals all came together to save these pups, what Roger and Anita did to get them back, is all in this movie I want you to see again.

The casting is just as good as the screenplay and the directing is top notch. There is no way you will forget some fantastic characters like Glenn Close as Cruella DeVil or Hugh Laurie as Jasper. Not saying the other cast did not leave up to their roles in this movie, but (especially) Glenn Close was magnificent in her role as Cruella.

The movie was a huge box office success and that led to a sequel (which was nowhere as good as this). Close magnificent performance earned her a Golden Globe nomination.

The movie is getting a prequel set to be release sometime in 2021. I guess Disney does not want to do a remake to a movie that is so well done. A remake will be a daunting task to surpass what this movie represents, when it comes to classic Disney live-action remake of their classic animations.

If you have not seen this movie at all, well, there is still time now that you still have life to go remedy that error.