For all intents and purposes, Cruella turned out to be a big hit. Made on the back of a $100 million budget, the movie made $225.3 million between theatrical returns and Disney+ streaming. Critically, critics and audiences adored it for the most, judging by its 74% Tomatometer and an Audience Score of 97% on Rotten Tomatoes. Either way, the movie is certified fresh.
However, just because the movie is certified fresh does not mean that it is outright perfect. There are some noteworthy criticisms that even those who love the movie have to point out whenever addressing it.
9 The Opening Scene is a lot to take in
Truth be told, a lot is going on in the opening scene alone. For starters, young Cruella is practically born as a character who embraces who she is, despite being bullied about it. Then, the plot kicks in once she watches her mother get pushed off of a cliff by a pack of Dalmatians.
This all happens in the first five minutes of the movie. Not only is it a lot to take in at first glance, but it is also an incredibly silly way to start a rather enjoyable movie. Not the best first impression.
8 The Sympathetic Portrayal Of A Dog Killer
A lot of moviegoers were disappointed by the concept of a standalone prequel for Cruella as soon as the first trailer dropped. Specifically, the idea disappointed passionate animal lovers who struggled to comprehend why they'd want to sympathize with a dog killer.
Many of those same fans were pleasantly surprised by the movie and its portrayal of Cruella, but still could not shake the feeling that they were being steered to fall in love with a humanizing portrait of a woman destined to do immoral things to dogs.
7 She Also Loves Dogs
For a villain destined to become a maniacal dog killer, this prequelized Cruella character actually loves dogs. Granted, she does harbor resentment for Dalmations—which is on-brand, of course—because she watched that breed kill her mother, but one of the closest things she's always had to a friend is her dog, Buddy.
Meanwhile, Horace's pet chihuahua pulls double duty as another ally to Cruella and a fellow caper in their gang. The original Cruella seemed to hate all dogs. This seemed like another way to sugarcoat and downplay the actual cruelness of the Cruella character.
6 The Dalmatians Being Villains
As mentioned earlier regarding the opening scene of the movie, the Dalmatians are portrayed as villainous more than anything else, kickstarting the plot of the movie in a monstrous way and literally serving as The Baroness' evil lapdogs.
This conflicted with the audience who grew accustomed to rooting for Dalmatians after the original animated movie. Now, they are expected to sneer and fear this staple of Disney iconography.
5 Disney's First Gay Character Feels Like Shallow Representation
One of the selling points of Cruella is that Disney promoted that it'd be featuring "Disney's first gay character." This proved to be a topic of contention and controversy on social media as Disney has produced a long line of "first gay characters" in recent years, all of whom suffer a similar problem. The problem being that they're never explicitly stated as queer, only by embodying stereotypes in their appearance.
Cruella's Artie is no different, as his queerness can only be inferred through subtle context clues. Even those who liked his character felt it frustrating to see another bait and switch from Disney on the topic.
4 Not Enough Fur
The entire aesthetic of Cruella's character in the original 101 Dalmatians relies on the character's love of fur. The main reason why she was such a detestable, seemingly irredeemable character for so many years is that she gleefully draped herself in the fur of her animal victims.
In Cruella, however, whenever the title character shows up to an extravagant event or sabotages one of the Baroness' appearances, she's donning something closer to polyester or leather. Never fur. It's almost as if the filmmakers consciously went out of their way to tone down Cruella's cruelty, for the same reason why she's molded into an avid dog lover.
3 Joker Syndrome
The comparisons to the Joker movie starring Joaquin Phoenix that came out two years prior have been rampant ever since the posters and trailers for Cruella first started dropping. These comparisons remain prevalent throughout the movie and have made viewers struggle to fully fall in love with Cruella for that very reason.
To quote Kimberley Terasaki from The Mary Sue, "the writers seemed to constrain themselves not only with their need to make a Cruella movie fit for Disney, but also make it similar to Joker in ways it did not need to be." Both are sympathetic villain origin stories set during the 1970s.
2 The Big Twist was too silly & soap opera-ish to take seriously
Cruella, for a lot of people, is a fun movie in its own right, but the twist revealed in its third act feels too heavy-handed, silly, and soap opera-ish to take seriously. In fact, it's yet another moment that seems to battle its own Joker Syndrome, where the Joker is revealed to be Thomas Wayne's son.
The twist in question refers to the shock reveal that The Baroness had been Cruella's birth mother this whole time. For some viewers, it took them completely out of the movie as it comes off like an unnecessary way to add tension between the protagonist and antagonist that was already present throughout the movie.
1 Cruella Is Both Anti-Establishment & Pro-Establishment?
Cruella spends much of her movie sabotaging The Baroness' public image by showing up to her events and overshadowing her using her own fashionista displays of art. It comes off as very anti-establishment and in many respects entertaining, but it confuses the message of both the movie and the character's motivations.
Such rebel-lite displays of behavior on Cruella's behalf against The Baroness suggest that she's anti-establishment, but throughout the movie, audiences are reminded that Cruella is pro-establishment. She doesn't want to take a stand against The Baroness to expose the monarchy which she represents but instead wants to overthrow and replace her as a sort of new Baroness of the fashion world.