"Cruella" Trailer Review: The Color behind the Black and White

This review goes into the effectiveness of the trailer Cruella and what we are hoping to see Disney do with this film.

By: smileyfacehappi1

I would like to go into a breakdown of the new movie trailer “Cruella” put out by Disney. Cruella as you may have guessed by the title is the backstory of the famous Disney villain Cruella De Vil. While watching this, I came up with five different criteria to best determine the effectiveness and ineffectiveness of this trailer. Now, before I start going into my criteria I’d like for you to take a moment to watch the trailer. CRUELLA Trailer (2021)

Now that you have watched this trailer, I’d like to list my criteria. So, that not only can I tell you what I thought of the trailer through my criteria but, you as my audience can either agree with my thoughts or disagree. So, without further talk here is my list of criteria: (1) Did this trailer tell the story and sell it? (2) Was the build and drop there and if it was, was it appealing to the watcher? (3) Did the final moment of the trailer and have a powerful ending? (4) Did this trailer take advantage of the tools of trade? (5) Did this trailer have a good use of information? Now using this list of criteria, I will now go over each one separately and while I talk about each one I’d like you to keep your own opinions in mind as well.

My first criteria for this trailer was “Did this tell the story and sell it?” While watching the trailer, I noticed they brought in some things from the old Disney movie 101 Dalmatians, such as the Dalmatians and their reaction to her entrance, which is exactly the same as in the old Disney movie. Someone that Disney brought in who is new and has me very intrigued about the whole movie is the other woman who dresses in black and white similar to Cruella herself. From the trailer, what we can decipher about the woman is that she and Cruella most likely don’t get along very well. We can make that assumption because of Cruella’s entrance to the party. Not only that but the way that she looked at her. Most people wouldn’t look so haughty and smug at a person that they liked. Seeing Cruella so young is another thing that would draw the people to the story. Also, in most Disney movies there is a villain but never has the villain had their story told. That’s is my round-up with why I believe this story was told and sold.

The next set of criteria I’d like to go over are, “Build and drop” and “Final moment of the trailer.” In the Cruella movie trailer, we start on a street in a city with Cruella looking very normal. This is odd because Cruella de Vil as we know is not normal. We know Cruella De Vil as the crazy madwoman who wants the fur of Dalmatians to make coats. So starting out so normal really builds up the trailer. From there, we get introduced to a bunch of new characters. And in each incoming scene, Cruella looks crazier and crazier and then it just drops. At this point her makeup is smeared, she looks exhausted, and she makes her final remark. “I’m Cruella.” And the trailer ends, leaving you curious about her backstory. For me personally, it left me with the question of “Who is Cruella?” Because at this point everything about Cruella that we know happened years later and this trailer makes you wonder what events happened in her life that made her lose her last screw? Coming back to the criteria, I’d like to point out how wonderful the build was in the trailer. The trailer got more and more appealing and I was invested and then the trailer dropped and ended with that final remark. Now, I also have to bring up the end moment. The trailer was very grabbing but it felt like it ended a bit too quick. I myself would have liked to see the same end but when the name Cruella popped up on the screen I would have liked to hear some hysterical laughter or something that didn’t make the end feel so dry.

Rounding up with my last few criteria, which are as follows: “Do not have too much information” and “Does it use the tools of the trade.” This trailer was very great with information. It gave the audience enough information to know a bit about her backstory and yet not enough to know everything. This leads us to where people will be curious and want to know more so they buy tickets. So, in the information part of the trailer, I would say it is very effective. Going back to the criteria I wanted to bring up something that not a lot of people think about in trailers which are the tools of the trade. The tools of the trade are a huge part of movie trailers. The tools are things such as fading screens, zooming in and out, transitions, and the list can go on. This trailer did really well with one tool in particular, which was black-out screens. Just as the information was about to start to get too much, the black screens came and limited my knowledge which in trailers is a very important thing to do.

According to my criteria, this Trailer is effective because of several things. One is the build of the trailer showing us what it’s about and not telling us everything, so it draws the person watching it in. Another is its remarkable ability to give information and yet at the same time not, it could also be its amazing performance with the tools of the trade. But the one thing that I think makes this advertisement so effective is its ability to draw the watcher in and keep them entertained enough to want to see more. I hope that from this review that you have created your own opinion on this trailer and will take that opinion to the movies to see for yourself the movie “Cruella.”