101 dogs' lives

Rating: 7/10 (10 September 2011)

Just last year, our family took on a pet dog for the first time so my perception of this Disney classic is obviously now biased. Seriously though, I'd have enjoyed it anyway. It's old fashioned family entertainment, easy to watch, but highly sentimental, of course. The animation was to my inexpert eyes, very good, particularly the tricky job of imparting personality to so any Dalmatian pups. Pongo and Hattie, the pups' parents could be Lady and the Tramp a bit further down the road while Cruella De Ville follows the models of preceding Disney female baddies, only with even more flounce and extravagance. Apart from the "Cruella De Ville" song, there's a distinct lack of musical interludes, which serves the purposes of the one-long-chase plot-line reasonably well. There's gentle humour as you'd expect and a tolerable running gag with the little pup that's forever hungry. I thought the best sequence though was right at the start when Pongo persuaded his owner to cosy up to Mattie's in the park, but the narrative manages to engage all the way through with the "human" characters also achieving sufficient degrees of personality to embellish the tale before the obligatory happy ending. You'd have to be pretty hard-hearted not to enjoy this delightful animation which I took pleasure in doing today for the very first time.