Director: Kevin Lima
Starring: Glenn Close, Ioan Gruffudd, Alice Evans, Tim McInnerny, Gérard Depardieu, Tony Robinson

- Reviewed by Kerri

Enough of that. I won't even mention the hideously wrong idea of having the press attend the same screening as 10,000 screaming, crying, yelling little monsters and their equally cranky parents. Let's instead cut to the chase. The single most engaging thing about this film is that it stars IOAN GRUFFUDD!!!!! In HANDCUFFS! Yeeeah baby!! Oh. Um... family film.

It's really too bad that I didn't get to see this film in the order intended, because I was rather enjoying the storyline, even if they did put Ioan in short pants the whole film. Ioan plays Kevin, the owner of an in-trouble dog shelter called Second Chances. He's about to be evicted along with his pooches and a parrot who thinks he's a rottweiler (voiced by Eric Idle), when Cruella De Vil (Glenn Close) is suddenly "rehabilitated" and let out of prison. She suddenly loves dogs, and decides to spend her parole saving the Second Chances shelter. She fixes it up, gives the eviction guy the boot, lavishes love on all the dogs, and makes Kevin's day.

Of course the "therapy" doesn't work, Cruella reverts back to her old ways, wants a dalmatian coat, her parole officer Cloe, who happens to own the original dalmatians, suspects something's wrong the whole time, Kevin falls for the parole officer, Gérard Depardieu plays a bumbling French idiot as always, Cruella gets baked in a cake (to the delight of the youngsters), and the dogs are all smarter than you'll ever be. Typical Disney stuff. The only painful part of this film was the recreation of the scene from Lady & the Tramp when the dogs share a plate of spaghetti and Kevin and Cloe, too, are eating spaghetti on their date. I didn't know whether to laugh or cry.

Now back to Ioan. What matters here is that there were at least three very handsome close-ups of Ioan Gruffudd and his smile lit up the screen about twenty times before I lost count. He was wearing a chunky beige sweater, brownish pants, boots, and his hair was all longish like in Solomon and Gaenor, but not so long like Horatio Hornblower. He does end up kissing Cloe (Alice Evans). Damn her. In his first scene we open up to him playing tug of war with a drooly mutt (rrowwwer) and he engages in some slapstick antics in the shelter. It wasn't much of an acting stretch to play a handsome English lad, but what the hell it worked for me! My first inclination when I heard he was in this film was, "Why, oh why", but now having seen it, I can understand. It was a fun role for him. And I'm not being biased here, but I think the combination of Disney and Ioan worked well. (Just don't make it a habit, okay?)

1 slice—cute puppy factor
1 slice—delighted the children
2 slices—casting Ioan Gruffudd
1 slice—Ioan in handcuffs

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