Why we love Cruella de VILLAINS
HAVING charmed film fans in Hollywood hits like La La Land, Emma Stone now gets to unleash her inner villainess by playing the dastardly Cruella de Vil.
She joins a long list of big screen baddies with the power to get moviegoers cowering in their seats – while loving every minute of it.
So there’s no doubt new movie Cruella, just out in UK cinemas after Covid restrictions were relaxed, will prove box office gold.
This is a prequel, in which 32-year-old Emma plays the young de Vil, a fashion designer who sets off on a journey to badness and madness.
Without giving too much away, we learn what happens to Cruella to make her become one of fiction’s great villains – the wild-haired fiend who wants to turn dog pelts into fur coats in One Hundred and One Dalmatians.
American star Emma has a passable English accent for the part, just as her two predecessors did – the US voiceover actress Betty Lou Gerson in the original animated Disney film in 1961 and Glenn Close in the 1996 remake as well as its sequel in 2000.
Glenn’s first outing as Cruella netted £226million at the box office.
And with Emma now stepping into her shoes, there is yet more proof that screen villains are a big draw.
Film critic Mark Adams says: “Bad guys are the best. Well... obviously
Heroes are good but villains are ones we remember MARK ADAMS MOVIE CRITIC ON FILM BADDIES
they aren’t, but every great film needs a villain to make the hero look good.
“And the more outrageous and extreme the villain the bigger and better the good guys.
“The original Disney animated villains were dark, devious and deliciously hiss-worthy. Whether it was Maleficent in Sleeping Beauty, Captain Hook in Peter Pan or The Evil Queen in Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, they scared young ones as well as delivering memorable lines.
CHARISMA
“Somehow the animal villains seem even more scary. Scar from The Lion King is possibly the best ever, brimming with bitter charisma and relishing his evil acts, while Shere Khan from The Jungle Book is creepy, chilly and terrifying at times.”
While Scar and Khan were voiced by males, Cruella is proof that women make equally good baddies.
Take Maleficent – chillingly voiced by American
actress Eleanor Audley in the 1959 animated movie Sleeping Beauty.
Disney made a killing in 2014 when they cast Angelina Jolie in the title role of Maleficent – reckoned by some critics to be their best villain.
Maleficent styles herself as the “mistress of all evil” and does not disappoint. In time-honoured fashion, we learn that her character was an enchanted fairy who had been wronged and had a score to settle.
Maleficent took £536million at the box office. It resulted in an inevitable sequel five years later – though fans of that movie will know the baddie showed she had principles too.
There is talk of a third film in the series and star Angelina, 45, says of the character: “She’s trying her best. Where she fails is that she doesn’t believe in herself.
“She’s just so much fun.
“At the end of the day someone like Maleficent, I think people like to watch her because she reminds them, certainly me and I hope others, that there’s a part of them that’s just
unbridled. We just have to be who we are.” If Maleficent is the queen of villains, the screen queens themselves can be pretty evil too.
Not least Snow White’s nemesis the Evil Queen who turns Wicked Witch.
Driven by madness and jealousy, she proved there wasn’t just one Grumpy so-and-so in the 1937 animated classic Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.
The Queen of Hearts in Alice in Wonderland was pretty ’orrible too, forever squealing “off with their ’eads!” – while eerie-eyed Ursula was suitably menacing as the sea witch in 1989 animation The Little Mermaid.
Many Disney villains come with an evil glint or manic cackle – and sometimes both.
Like Peter Pan baddie Captain
Hook, Pinocchio’s captor Stromboli and sinister Jafar, the cunning baddie desperate to get his hands on Aladdin’s magic lamp.
Others have a slow, distinguished yet equally menacing voice – like murderous lion Scar in 1994 film The Lion King and the treacherous tiger Shere Khan in 1967 movie triumph The Jungle Book.
They were voiced by English actors Jeremy Irons and George Sanders.
Of playing baddies like Scar, 72-year-old Oscar-winner Jeremy says: “I think they’re more interesting, the characters, personally, so maybe I’m slightly drawn to them.”
Revenge is a common theme too, with Disney baddies especially.
Shere Khan has it in for mankind in general after a jungle fire scarred his face and blinded him in one eye.
The disfigured villain aims to strike back by devouring the man cub
Mowgli. He doesn’t succeed, of course.
But Disney does with its craftily-pitched villains – offering film fans someone, or thing, that they love to hate.
Critic Mark Adams added: “Disney heroes are all well and good and, of course, we love them.
“But the villains are the ones we truly remember.
“The fact Disney is cleverly reinventing their villains – such as Cruella and Maleficent – and making them the stars shows how charismatic villains can be as cool as the heroes.”
I’m drawn to playing a baddie... it’s more interesting JEREMY IRONS VOICE OF SCAR IN LION KING