101 Dalmatians (1996)

101 Dalmatians (1996)

Directed by: Stephen Herek

Starring: Glenn Close, Jeff Daniels, Joely Richardson

101 Dalmatians is the live-action remake of One Hundred and One Dalmatians. It’s such a faithful remake, in fact, that there’s basically no reason whatsoever to ever watch it when you could just watch the classic Disney cartoon instead.

There’s this evil lady who wants to make a coat out of dalmatian fur, so she collects 99 puppies in a warehouse. Unfortunately for her, they get saved by a network of dogs and other animals, and she and her goons (one of which is played by Hugh Laurie) end up getting arrested.

I gotta give this movie one thing: At least it doesn’t have talking animals with creepy, animated mouths. THE BANE OF LIVE-ACTION ANIMAL MOVIES. In fact, unlike the original, the animals don’t talk or think out loud or anything like that, which makes the whole second half of the film a little weird. I mean, you kinda get that these dogs are working together in an underground railroad kind of network or something, but it’s confusing as to why they’re doing this. You know, since dogs are really stupid actually? But if you give them “voices” or something, it’s easier to think of them as smarter than usual. Not that I’m advocating they should’ve ADDED voices to animals, god no. In fact, if I had my way, no live-action movie EVER would do that.

Also Glenn Close is crazy.