101 Dálmatas

Watched this curled up in bed with girlfriend, probably the best place...

Good clean family film, good stuff. I always think it's great how actors do these family films... Glenn Close is great as the villain, and I was surprised to see Mark Williams (of Fast Show fame) in it. Hugh Laurie is good as well. As are all the dogs and other animals for that matter.

I haven't seen the Walt Disney version, but I would imagine that's probably more of a classic than this.

One for all the family.

5/10 (for me).

As an animation student, I frequently cringe when they make a live action version of an animated film, as they rarely live up to their cartoon counterparts. This is not one of those films. I loved it, the Dogs, pongo and Perdy, were outstanding, and even with computer stand ins, and Hensons creature shop, you'd be hard pushed to see the joins, the exceptions being the Wood pecker at the door and the two Racoons giving each other a high five. Jeff Daniels and Joely Richardson were great, Hugh Laurie and Mark Williams were brilliant as the bumbling lackeys, but the star of the show had to be Glenn Close as Cruella DeVille. I never knew animated characters could have real life twins, but Glenn Close was Cruella's, delightfully over the top, with more ham than a bacon butty. If you liked the cartoon you'll love this version as well. The only thing I wondered about in the whole film was how many takes it took them to get some of the animal shots, this certainly contradicts the old adage of not working with animals and kids.

There is a lot to enjoy, especially Glenn Close's near-perfect performance as Cruella DeVil. She was absolutely brilliant here, truly evil, and was clearly having a lot of fun. Hugh Laurie made a memorable appearance as Jasper, and some of his lines are very funny. The scenes in the mansion, were inspired, I think by the Home Alone franchise, and for this sort of film it did work. Jeff Daniels and Joely Richardson are more subdued but deliver very human portrayals of the Dearlys. Joan Plowright was fine also as the nanny. And Michael Kamen's music was lovely. However, I much prefer the animated version to this, and here's why. The dogs were very cute, but nothing they did was particularly interesting. Also the Twilight Bark sequence was lost, and that's what made the animation so poignant. It also isn't as entertaining as the animated version. All in all, an entertaining film, that just lacked the ingredients that made the animated version a masterpiece. 7/10 Bethany Cox

Cute, but very silly at times, and not as good as the original.

The original 101 Dalmatians, released in 1961, was an animation classic. Adorable characters, nice story, happy ending. Mostly meant for kids but had something in it for adults too. It wasn't perfect though: after a wonderful opening act it did lose some of its charm and substance and degenerated into a caper towards the end.

This 1996 remake of 101 Dalmatians takes the same plot, almost to the letter, de-animates it and throws in more silliness. There are a few positive things added, mostly in dialogue in the first few scenes, and I thought the real dogs were quite cute, even compared to the animated ones, but most of the changes are for the worse.

One big positive of this remake, however, is Glenn Close's portrayal of Cruella De Vil. Suitably intense and menacing.

Overall, very little reason to watch this if you've seen the original. And if you haven't, then watch the original instead...

This is one of those movies that truly is - and I don't mean to use the cliché - entertaining whether you are a kid or an adult. The dalmatians and other animals are a lot of fun to watch.

Glenn Close must have had a lot of fun making this film, playing the evil "Cruela De Vil." Just as much fun, maybe more, were the two bumbling dog-nappers - Hugh Laurie and Mark Williams, I believe - idiots who were genuinely funny in their stupidity. Their dialog was hilarious.

There are nice colors in here, too, so a widescreen DVD is good to have if you enjoy this movie. I didn't find the surround sound to be much.

Speaking of clichés and such, there are some drawbacks here that were a little annoying to me, like overdoing the intelligence of the dogs, making them almost human-like with their abilities to understand English. In fact, it's taken to the absurd level level of some of the animals being smarter than humans. Please....give me a break! Also, you get the quick "film romance" in which two people (Jeff Daniels and Joely Richardson) barely meet and already they are in love, getting married in no time. Please....give me a break!

Still, recommended if you want a want 103 minutes of a "cute" story and don't take any of it the least bit seriously as if anything in here could really happen.