AFTER three years of aversion therapy treatment, Cruella De Vil is no longer going mad when she sees spots.

Parole officer Chloe (Alice Evans), herself a Dalmatian owner, is less than convinced by this remarkable conversion but Cruella (Glenn Close) secures her release by funding a ramshackle Westminster dog shelter, run by the sweet and kindly Kevin (Welshman Ioan Gruffudd: a name that sounds like a drunken bark).

Inevitably, Cruella's psychotherapy goes on the blink. At the sound of bells - how very Quasimodo - she reverts to evil, fur-fixated type, hurrah, and with put-upon henchman Alonso (Tim McInnerny) in tow, she commissions the mad French furrier Le Pelt (Gerard Depardieu) to create her the definitive Dalmatian designer coat.

Standing in her way are not only nice Chloe and Kevin in his summer shorts, but Oddball, the spotless Dalmatian, and Waddlesworth, a parrot with the voice of Monty Python's Eric Idle and the misconception that he's a dog.

So, Kevin Lima's sequel is not much of a detour from Disney's first Dalmatian live-action family entertainment, 1996's 101 Dalmatians, or the unsurpassable animated version. It is, however, well paced, superbly costumed and inventively designed, with a less supine, albeit very plain and retro romantic young couple in Evans and Gruffudd, and a definite hit in the mouthy macaw.

Depardieu, in his leopard skin shorts, roars around like he's still making Asterix And Obelix, valiantly trying to out-ham the outrageous Close, but she is having none of it, giving her most physical, humiliated turn since Fatal Attraction in a slurry flurry of slapstick scenes. However, both must bow before the comic mastery of McInnerny, as unctuous as he once was in Blackadder.

Sometimes smart, but often merely broad, 102 Dalmatians strains at the leash like a puppy in its eagerness to please. As before, that eagerness will delight children but adults may need to grit their teeth.