Emma Stone's 'Cruella' Trailer Is Like 'Joker' For Tweens

For parents who hoped that the Joaquin Phoenix movie Joker would lead to more hardcore origin stories of silly villains, good news; the new Emma Stone-starring movie Cruella promises to answer that age-old question — what would Cruella De Vil be like if she was a hard-drinking real-life person in a weird family-friendly villain origin story?

For the rest of us, the trailer for Cruella will leave you scratching your head. Yes, this movie could turn out to be awesome, kind of like the Anglie Jolie-led Maleficent, but so far, based only on the trailer, the movie seems to be in search of an audience. Is Cruella supposed to be the Harley Quinn of Disney anti-heroes now? Is Emma Stone trying to do The Queen’s Gambit, but swapping out chess and drugs for an obsession with stealing animals? Will the entire movie be like this, or is there some twist in which we learn that all 101 individual dalmatians were, in fact, horrible, bad dogs, that needed to be captured?

Again, it might be too soon to pass judgment. Emma Stone is absurdly talented, and there’s something vaguely interesting about Disney trying to pretend like this movie will be a subversive fuck-you to their own brand. But, at this point, if the movie doesn’t end with Cruella dancing down some steps, going full-on Joaquin Phoenix Joker, it looks like Disney will have missed a bizarre opportunity that they seem to have created for themselves.

Watch the trailer above.

Cruella, notably, does not have a rating yet. The movie is scheduled to be released in theaters on May 28, 2021.