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The formula stays the same as "101 Dalmatians". Nasty Cruella De Vil commissions a mass dognap for her own selfish purposes but is foiled by a nice, young, cute couple and the animal kingdom. Works every time.
Well, there are some variations. Imprisoned for her last foul deeds, Cruella (Glenn Close) seems to have reformed. Released, she tells Chloe, her dalmatian-owning probation officer (Alice Evans), that she's gone straight and won't be trying to turn puppies into fur coats. She even coughs up funds to save an animal shelter run by Kevin (Ioan Gruffudd). Unfortunately she has been given some experimental brain programming in prison, and the bongs of Big Ben are enough to trigger a reversion to her old ways. Aided by a very odd French furrier (Gerard Depardieu) she grabs the dogs, frames Kevin, and double-crosses Chloe.
The back half of the film is mainly Cruella's come-uppance. The director Kevin Lima has made sure that there is plenty of scenery for Glenn Close to chew. So much so that the showdown takes place in a vast automated Parisian bakery with cogwheels, conveyor belts, ovens, and enormous vats of glop in which to dunk her.
Eric Idle voices an irritating parrot who has deluded himself into believing he's a rottweiler and Tim McInnerny is De Vil's accident-prone manservant. The costume designer requires Ioan Gruffudd to run around in unspeakable baggy shorts, the worst on screen this year, (except for Woody Allen's in "Small Time Crooks"). Sparse consolations for this unoriginal yarn include a brief vision of an apocalyptic white London with black spots (ah, those computer graphics), and a sweet spotless pup who understandably feels apart from the others. What next? "103 Dalmatians"? Or perhaps a prequel with 99?
Read about more dog films.
Watch Glenn Close discussing "102 Dalmatians" on Film 2000.
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