In a film with a title like 102 Dalmatians, you would expect to see more than a few dogs. So, it comes as something of a surprise that we see very little of the 102 pups until the very end of the film. Indeed, except for that one extra pooch in the title, there's very little here that is new. The writers have simply reinvented the story line, gussying it up with a lot of flashy mayhem but failing to imbue it with the charm of classic Disney. Kids may smile whenever the Dals of the title cavort across the screen, but even they may start snoozing when the plot abandons puppy power.

In one of the few really clever moments, the film opens with Cruella De Vil (Glenn Close, even more cartoonish than before) as the only human inmate of the Pavlov Behavioral Asylum. If Dr. Pavlov (David Horowitz) can train foxes to love bunnies and cats to love birds, why can't he teach Cruella to love Dalmatians? Well, he can and he does, thus showing the court that cruel Cruella deserves parole. She's sent to Dalmatian-loving parole officer Chloe (Alice Evans), whose own Dals are recent proud parents of three pups, including spotless Oddball. In an admirable but awkwardly developed sub-plot, the writers try to teach kids that being different is okay by showing Oddball as the odd pup on the block due to her lack of spots. She tries everything to look like her siblings, even stealing a spotted sweater to look like a "normal kid."

Obsessed with protecting her brood of puppies, especially fragile Oddball, Chloe refuses to believe that Cruella could ever change. But Cruella quickly proves her change of heart by buying a down-on-its-luck dog shelter owned by handsome Kevin (Ioan Gruffud). Pretty soon, Chloe's and Kevin's dogs get their gawky owners together for a date, which shamelessly parodies Disney's own Lady and the Tramp. Of course, just when life starts to seem peachy, Cruella blows a gasket -- her Pavlovian training goes south and her true evil nature reemerges, complete with her desperate desire to have a new spotted fur coat. This time, she wants a hood, though, so she needs 102 Dalmatians to complete her masterpiece. Rather a simplistic excuse for a sequel, don't you think?

For inspiration and criminal assistance, she enlists the aid of French furrier Monsieur Le Pelt (Gerard Depardieu), whose funniest moment is when he pronounces "puppies" as "poopies". Other than that, Le Petit is a useless fixture in the film, offering Cruella yet another minion to browbeat, but little to no comic relief. In typical cartoon-inspired style, the antics get more and more wacky until the final sequence, which finds all the pups about to be carved up by Le Pelt brandishing razor-sharp knives in his sweat shop factory. This last bit is more than a tad too dark as is the action sequence that follows with Cruella being mixed, flattened and baked in a conveniently-placed nearby bakery oven.

The most inexplicable element of the film, though, is the fact that the dogs take such a back seat to the human action. Except for the final sequence, the 102 Dalmatians of the title are sorely missing screen time. These dogs simply never have their day, constantly eclipsed by Cruella's melodramatic transformation from puppy-lover to puppy-napper. Sometimes you just wish she'd sit down, shut up and let the dogs have some fun. They don't and, so, neither do we.

Ironically, Disney must have expected a big response from the film because at the end, they added a quick little warning about how Dalmatian ownership requires lots of responsibility. It seems that after seeing all the adorable puppies in the first film, every kid in America bought a Dalmatian. It's unlikely that that will happen after they see this film. More likely they'll say something like this: "Buy a Dalmatian? Why should I? They don't do anything." You got it kids.