101 Dalmatians origins story
Cruella in February, the internet went into something of a meltdown. The trailer, it was quickly noted, bore a distinct similarity to the one for Todd Phillips s 2019 smash
Joker.
There were the hints of a tormented past resulting in the villain we know and love (to hate) today; the first person voiceover detailing the protagonist s wickedness; snapshots of the nemeses that tipped our anti-heroes over the edge (Baroness Von Hellman for
Cruella, Thomas Wayne for the
Joker); a soundtrack from the golden era of 1950s crooning (Connie Francis s
Who s Sorry Now for
Cruella vs Charlie Chaplin s
Smile); and an overriding sense that we were going to learn a lot more about the titular characters than we ever would while they were playing second fiddle to the heroes of the movies we have seen them in before.
tropes of the genre are here – the gang of loveable
rogues led by an amiable-but-flawed hero, the impenetrable safe that only a socially awkward genius can crack, the stylised early exposition as Mr Big walks the thieves and the audience alike through how things should (but inevitably won’t) turn out, and the hordes of marauding zombies.
OK
, so it’s not an entirely traditional heist yarn, and these aren’t entirely traditional zombies.
In a nutshell, Dave Bautista’s mercenary Scott Ward is charged by a mysterious millionaire with assembling a team to enter walled-off, zombie-infested Las Vegas and liberate a couple of hundred million dollars from the vaults of a casino.