Rishi Sagar

(ZERO SPOILERS) A film that could have been so much more. Seriously, so much wasted potential. The actors were brilliant, the themes, the overall storyline was perfect - all the basic ingredients of greatness were right there. But bad storytelling killed the soul of the movie by failing to blend them properly. It was a tactical win but a strategic loss, as they say in the military; sometimes you win every battle but somehow end up losing the war. That's what happened with Cruella. Every scene of the movie was shot to perfection (excluding the bad artistic decision to use CGI dogs that everyone's talking about, of course), but the different plot points never managed to coalesce together to create a deep, satisfying story. The movie essentially feels like a dozen great short movies stitched together to somehow drive the story forward. Each great on its own, granted, but also ultimately pulling the story in a different direction than the others, resulting in an overall narrative that has only a vague idea of where it wants to go. I kept waiting for the edges to sharpen, for the storytelling to become tight and taut, but the moment never arrived. Any movie more than two hours long needs to be so because it could not be made shorter without sacrificing the story or missing key character-building moments. Cruella did not achieve this. Some parts of the movie were honestly a slog - once you get used to the wittycisms and the glam, you'll find the plot is rambling, encroaching all over the place, even places it has no business being. So that's it, semi-coherent plotting is my only gripe. Oh, also, the director not respecting the audience's time by making it longer than it needs to be. Overall 3.5 stars, rounded down because of the CGI dogs, and for frustrating me by showing me, quite often, periodic, tantalizing glints of greatness that it couldn't ultimately achieve.

I've read the reviews here. None of them tell what the movie's really about, beyond the obvious, frivolous details. If one, or maybe two reviewers couldn't catch the theme, it may be attributed to stupidity or oversight, but when none of them sees it - it's definitely malice. The movie is about a man's clean integrity and the joy of doing what he loves being relentlessly and mercilessly butchered by people acting on things nothing more concrete than mere whims. It shows how meritocracy is murdered by crude malice and brute idiocy. And if all you could say at the end of the film is "ah well it's a good movie" you are part of the reason. The injustice shown here is one of the biggest horrors I've seen - and one of the least recognised. This movie was a cry for help. It's about two forces fighting an ancient, bloody war - except one side doesn't know it's fighting a war. The heroic in men, and the human version of parasites. Please watch it. And mourn.