My Review of 101 Dalmatians (1961) · 1:04am Jan 19th, 2022
Rating Scale:
12/10—a complete masterpiece; flawless and outstanding
11/10—Excellent, near-perfect film
10/10—the standard rating; awesome film with a couple of flaws
9/10—a wonderful film with several flaws
8/10–a great film with numerous flaws but not enough to ruin it
7/10—a fun and entertaining movie; not great but still enjoyable
6/10—a slightly above average film; it is something I might watch again
5/10—mediocre movie; not awful but not great either
4/10—a below average film; it could have been much better
3/10—a bad film; poorly written and poorly executed
2/10—a very bad movie; the few good things in the movie overshadowed by the bad things
1/10—a terrible movie; a total waste of time
0/10—a worthless piece of abomination; should have never been made
Greetings, everyone! This is Mr. J back with another movie review for tonight! This evening, I will be reviewing Disney’s original animated feature film entitled 101 Dalmatians from 1961. Now just like with the other classic Disney movies I’ve reviewed before, this was yet another film I grew up watching as a kid. I never thought too highly of it, but I remember enjoying it enough as an entertaining Disney movie that features talking Dalmatians. However, I was never really a fan of dogs in general because I’m more of a cat person; therefore, I was never a big fan of this movie.
Nonetheless, as I am looking back at the movie, I still think that it is worth watching as it contains themes of family, loss, hardship, and love. This is about a couple who both own their own Dalmatian (Pongo and Perdita respectively) and are overjoyed to see the latter give birth to multiple puppies. However, an unscrupulous woman named Cruella De Vil wants all the puppies for herself and desires to skin them into coats. Having her henchmen capture all the pups, Pongo and Perdita must find all the help they can get to rescue their puppies and stop Cruella before it’s too late.
This was certainly a fun adventure to watch as it contains high stakes, solid character growth, and very decent animation especially taking place in the 1960s. Although the story wasn’t really groundbreaking per say, it was still pretty much well-written and doesn’t drag down the plot at all.
The voice acting was likewise decent. While I will admit that the vocal performances of the late Rod Taylor and Ben Wright for Pongo and Roger were good, the voice acting of the late Betty Lou Gerson as Cruella was honestly great.
Speaking of Cruella, she isn’t one of my favorite Disney villains. Although her character was well-written and her motivation made some sense, the main thing I dislike about her was her obnoxious personality and tone. She reminds me too much of Rarity from MLP if Rarity was evil. Plus, she isn’t as sassy and intimidating like Scar. Just my opinion. So again, her voice actress did great except that her character isn’t my cup of tea.
The music and soundtrack were also well-composed and are very catchy if I do say so myself.
This film shows us how family must always stick together and that evil psychopathic people like Cruella must never go near to any dog in general. It’s a good thing the John Wick movies exist because he would give her a piece of his mind if Cruella were to ever succeed in making coats out of puppies. Jokes aside, family is so valuable that it must never be severed.
So yeah, this was a pretty much entertaining Disney movie that has gained quite the reputation within the Disney universe and amongst hardcore Disney fans. I will rate it a 7/10!
Peace!
This is my OG childhood movie! And since I'm a Dalmatian fan it make me love the movie more
I love this movie
Funny. Every time I look back on Cruella, I can’t help but think of her as an alternate reflection of Rarity. Plus, I find her to be a brilliant representation of greed.
Speaking of Rarity, what do you think of the character, exactly?
I too have enjoyed this movie over the years.
The one thing I couldn’t help but feel saddened by was that the lack of involvement from Walt Disney was pretty apparent throughout the film, but I didn’t think it was enough to put a damper on things.
This was one of my favorite movies as a kid, and one of my favorite scenes in it is when the dalmatians roll in ash to make themselves look like black labs in an attempt to escape Cruella. At first it works, but when the snow starts falling, they look like inverted dalmatians, black with white spots instead of white with black spots
5628918
She's not that good of a character. The things I don't like about her outweigh the things I like about her.
5629004
I was wondering about that. I had a feeling that she was probably not a top favorite of yours.
Ironically, how you feel about Rarity is the same as how I feel about Fluttershy sometimes.