Prior to 1996, Stephen Herek had directed three of the most dissimilar movies: "Critters", "Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure" and "Mr. Holland's Opus" (he also directed "Don't Tell Mom the Babysitter's Dead", which I haven't seen). Therefore, it was a surprise to see him direct a live-action adaptation of "101 Dalmatians".Since we already know the plot, the movie itself isn't that much of a treat. Even so, you gotta love Glenn Close's over-the-top performance as the fur-obsessed Cruella DeVil. Close plays her more as a self-aggrandizing megalomaniac than an evil thug. The rest of the cast isn't as impressive in their performances, but we see some good people here. We all know Jeff Daniels. Joely Richardson is the daughter of Vanessa Redgrave; her sister Natasha married Liam Neeson but died in a skiing accident in 2009. Joan Plowright is a classically trained actress who was married to Laurence Olivier from 1961 until his death. Hugh Laurie is best known as TV's Dr. House. Mark Williams is now known as Ron Weasley's dad in the Harry Potter movies. Tim McInnerny is now known for the role of Lord Robett Glover on "Game of Thrones".It'll be an OK thing to let the tykes watch if you need to keep them entertained for a brief period. The "Home Alone"-style mishaps rained upon Jasper and Horace will hold their attention. I doubt that anyone else will enjoy it that much.

101 Dalmatians was a bland, inadequate, and completely dissatisfying live-action remake of the charming 1961 animated feature film of the same name - Both from Disney Studios.101 Dalmatians starts its story off as a horribly contrived boy-meets-girl tale where the thing that brings these 2 sappy people together is that each is the proud owner of a dalmatian dog - His is a male - Hers is a female. (Now, isn't that just too corny for words, or what?) 101 Dalmations' biggest and most damaging deficit was actress Glenn Close, as the ruthless fashion-house owner, Cruella De Vil. Close was truly terrible at this sort of Comedy. Her annoying, over-the-top, scenery-chewing antics weren't even in the least bit amusing, only nasty and just plain awful. Her despicable character quickly wore out its welcome within the very first hour of this picture.101 Dalmatians was the sort of story where the animals appear to be more intelligent and resourceful than their human counterparts. It wasn't until this film's last 45 minutes that these mighty clever beasts (dogs, raccoons, horses, and birds, alike) eagerly took their heroic part and ingeniously pulled together in order to help rescue the 99 dalmatian puppies from their deadly confines at Cruella's posh Suffolk estate.Through all of this strife one really had to wonder about the rationality and sanity of the ludicrous Cruella character who wanted more than anything in the whole, wide world - A full-length coat fashioned out of dalmatian puppy pelts. It was really quite unsettling to see what a kick Cruella got out of the thought that once she had her coat of dog hair, she'd actually be wearing her employee's dogs.Now, I ask you - Is that not just too unfunny and demented for words, or what??

So... Disney thought they'd dip into the cash cow and try and rehash the already perfect with no need for modernization movie, 101 Dalmatians. Now with video games, fashion, and modern slapstick humor, this is a wonderfully terrible movie that seems to forget about the stylistic choices and just HOW the original worked. In the original, no one suspects Cruella of doing anything - Anita even states 'She may be eccentric, but she's not a thief.' One of Disney's more downplayed movies, the 1961 original featured wonderful characters, wonderful down to earth animation, wonderful backgrounds, and people you actually cared about. When the dogs go off- on their own - because nobody else saw the sings, it isn't a constant snooze fest of waiting for the off camera crew to have the REAL dogs do what they're supposed to do (in this way, Santa Buddies did it better) but it actually has, (because it was animated) the dogs TALKING. You understand what they want, what needs to happen - because they can speak their minds. Now, we have the police out to get the puppies as well - and Cruella, (whom Glen Close is a good match for) is played up even MORE to the extreme and completely unbelievable as a sane individual that no one would suspect. I enjoyed this movie as a child, but I can't get behind it now. It's too much, too silly, and the original did it right. Sorry.

Live action remakes of animated features almost always wind up being risky affairs. Disney's 101 Dalmatians, a live action version of its classic animated feature, goes well beyond risky and straight into idiotic territory. This jumbled mess of a film is only noteworthy for the animal acting and for an over-the-top Glenn Close performance that gets worse by the second. Unfortunately, even those rare elements of slight interest get glossed over by CGI and a ridiculous set of sequences that turns the minimalistic joy of the original into nothing more than chaotic clutter.101 Dalmatians strips all the elements from the animated feature for the sake of laziness, it seems, and what we're left with is a completely unnecessary project that demonstrates Disney's unfortunate unwillingness to fully commit to a film with heart. This Stephen Herek-directed movie "updates" the formula and adds a couple of dumb chase sequences to fill time, giving us characters that we don't care about and putting them in situations that cheerlessly mangle the original plot.Roger Dearly (Jeff Daniels) is a video game designer. He's an obvious update on the song-writing Roger out of the animated version and this proves problematic right away: there's no excuse for the famous and awesome Cruella de Vil song. In any event, Roger has a dog genius named Pongo. Pongo's pretty bright, but we have no idea what's going on in his canine head because there's no internal dog monologue. The key element that made One Hundred and One Dalmatians so fantastic is, alas, missing.Roger meets Anita (Joely Richardson) in the park after a disastrous and apparently hilarious pair of chase sequences because one wasn't enough to set up things. They do what any sensible people do after getting thrown into a park's lake and get married immediately. Also, they both have Dalmatians and now Pongo has a lover. The cuddly dog scenes show us they love each other. Aww. Anita works for Cruella de Vil (Close) a bizarre fur-loving weirdo with designs on the puppies Anita and Roger's doggies eventually have. You know the rest.Stunningly, this live action version of Dodie Smith's story was penned and produced by John Hughes. Yes, that John Hughes. How he managed to mangle such a simple story is beyond me, but he sure did a number on this one. For starters, this version sticks the humans squarely in charge of things and then jettisons them for the last act so that we get a musically driven dog's rescue sequence that eliminates the brilliance of the original because we can't hear what they're saying to each other.The best parts of the animated version are, therefore, gone. The barking of the dogs becomes a bunch of noise and the overwhelmingly invasive Michael Kamen score keeps meddling and telling us what we're supposed to feel. As much as I dislike the premise of talking animal movies, Disney's remake could have used a voice or two from the kingdom of the canines.Because the dogs lack voices and because we're focused on the dumb, boring humans, we don't really ever connect when the dogs go missing. The sequences that the animated version used to so lovingly attach us to Pongo and his family are gone, replaced by a grand "naming of the dogs" sequence that really only identifies the dogs by physical traits. This is another problem that could have been solved by having the dogs speak.Of course, having animals speak in these sorts of movies usually suffers from the fact that talking animals generally look stupid. But Disney doesn't seem to have any concern of that because they use copious CGI anyway, "fleshing out" the actions of the dogs and other animals when the trained canines can't do the trick. The discrepancy here is abundantly and embarrassingly clear, as it's hard to mask the sudden appearance of a CGI puppy heading down a slide into the snow. The large group shots of the puppies also shine with the clumsy computer-assisted stuff.In the end, 101 Dalmatians is a waste of time. While some may find value in the Glenn Close performance and some of the animal stuff, it wasn't enough for me. The movie is amazingly lazy, even by Disney's modern standards. The invasive score, the poor CGI and the bland performances from Daniels and Richardson make this a film to avoid like a creepy canine with rabies. And don't even get me started on the tragic absence of the beloved Sergeant Tibbs!