102 DALMATIONS (2000) ** As my daughter said, it's not really a great movie but there are lots of cool dogs. It's not that they ran out of ideas, so much as didn't feel the need for any. If you enjoyed 101 Dalmations, animated or humanoid, and don't want anything particularly different, this film's for you-so they named it that way to avoid confusion. The animals rights activist and parole officer don't mask the fact that it's all the same program being run over again. To give them credit, they don't feed off their previous work at the telling moment, but instead run Lady and the Tramp as romantic counterpoint. Glenn Close obviously thinks the entire thing is about Cruella DeVil, so she's more than happy to prance about refraining (not reinventing) the role. Gérard Depardieu is very funny for the first few minutes, as a fur model/furrier/French bastard/love interest. It goes on like that, with Eric Idle stealing the best scenes as a parrot with serious identity issues. That part's new but, you know, inessential. Alice Evans and Ioann Gruffudd are an improvement over the video game designer couple in the first one, but it's not exactly groundbreaking work.
back to Brilliant Observations on 1776 Films page, or Index
go back home, or send me email
Reviews won't do it any more! I need sustained brilliance! I want to buy your novel!