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General Review:
If you have children, you'll appreciate any decent family movie at holiday time and this one fits the bill. It may not be great for the youngest kiddies, thanks to a scary, maniacal performance by Close. But most kids will enjoy the animals (of course), the sunny love story and the cartoonish antics of Close and Depardieu. The costumes are worth the price of admission alone and the set-up of the story line, with a reformed Cruella, is actually quite fun. Adult watchers will start to lose interest when the plot degenerates, in the last half hour or so, into lame Home Alone style violence. Cruella's fate is particularly stupid and unbelievable. I suppose there's not a lot else you can do for a big finale when you have a bunch of dogs up against human villains -- or if there is, the screenplay writers weren't clever enough to think of it. Many reviewers have panned this as a rehash of the first movie with over-the-top performances. That view is not entirely unfair. But the colorful costumes, sets, puppies, and two great actors chewing up the scenery still added up to a fun two hours for this reviewer's family.
Depardieu Review:
The general consensus on Ginny's message board is that this is a winner. Gérard's entrance -- in the leopard-headed cod piece -- is a born classic. How about a big poster of that one? Nothing else quite matches his first appearance, unfortunately, and GD, along with Glenn Close, is the victim of lots of pie-in-the-face humor. Gérard also doesn't have as much screen time as we would have liked (of course). But his costumes and hair-do -- Monsieur! -- are too good to miss, and it's always fun to see him do Disney. Overall, this is a thumb's up -- a comic Depardieu cameo just in time for Christmas.
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