101 Dalmatians

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).

"101 Dalmatians" is perfectly good clean children entertainment. It's has a fun feeling and atmosphere and some great characters.

John Hughes his writing style is notable in this movie. The characters and the humor are similar to his other movies such as the well know movie "Home Alone". The humor is slapstick like at times (especially with the villains Jasper and Horace) which works very effective for a fun children movie like this one.

Of course everything is terribly predictable and nothing that happens in this movie comes as a surprise. It's simple fun and entertainment. The humor is simple but it's good and works effective.

Glenn Close is perfectly cast as über-villain Cruella De Vil and portrays a highly memorable character. She truly is the highlight of the movie and steals the show. She also seemed to had lots of fun playing the over-the-top villainous but oh so fun character. Also good are the more slapstick like, stereotypical villains Jasper and Horace played by Hugh Laurie and Mark Williams. Another fun villain role is played by John Shrapnel who is perhaps best known for his role in "Gladiator".

The fun and perhaps also a bit underrated musical score is done by Michael Kamen. It quite honestly is one of his better works.

Children will enjoy watching this movie and I can know, since I actually saw this movie back in the cinema, when I was still a child myself.

6/10

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It's a sweet film which will surely be of great joy to both kids and parents alike. Recommended.

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

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.