Maleficent review (2014, Fantasy/Thriller/Family, Robert Stromberg)

The original classic Sleeping Beauty had a more compact, and because of it, easily digestible feel. Dark, foreboding, enchanting, and frankly quite neat, the 65 year old original had long-since earned its status as one of the greatest Disney classics.

Then a couple people with no original ideas of their own looked at that classic, thought it should be revitalized and maybe even twisted around because why the hell not, and ended up making this movie. Is it horrendous? No, not really. But it's just so inconsequential that that is my main problem with this film.

I have to get it out of the way right at the get-go: one of the very few saving graces for this film is in Angelina Jolie's performance. Throughout her entire run on-screen, she pretty much steals the show. And while she nails the deceptively malevolent vibe of the character down to a 'T' (you'll understand why I said 'deceptively' soon), just about everything else about this movie nearly brings her performance down to the level of ambitious, yet failed fan-fiction schlock that rips off just about every work of fantasy in history.

The special effects, as expected by the man who worked on James Cameron's Avatar, are solidly done. But anything that isn't directly involved in the narrative, such as the many spells employed by our title character herself, doesn't even matter in the first place. The effort that went into designing those effects could have been put to better use, but instead they serve to dazzle the audience like Fiddler's Green from George Romero's Land of the Dead used fireworks to distract zombies. In fact, you pretty much have to be a zombie to even appreciate this film at all, because as mentioned, there's a lot of fluff, very pretty fluff at that, but that's still useless and pretty fluff. Likewise, the cinematography is good as well, at least in appearance, but that's pretty much all I can say about it.

Like most movies over the past decade or more, this film somehow lacks a memorable soundtrack. Compare this travesty to the more heartfelt (and arguably just as dark) original which utilized some of its soundtrack to spotlight the plotline (in other words, sing-song, just like what you get in so many other Disney films throughout its history). This lack of a soundtrack that even adds anything of substance serves as another nail in the coffin as to just how soulless this film is.

Aside from Jolie, who, as mentioned, steals the show pretty much all the time she appears on screen, nobody really does anything of note. Some characters, and thus the performances of those portraying them, even got outright neutered in this live-action re-imagining of Disney's classic. The three fairies Flora, Fauna and Merryweather all became unfunny Three Stooges spoofs, whereas in the original they were vastly essential to the plot. In this film they are stupid, obnoxious, and ditzy, ending up being negligent regarding Aurora's very well-being. In the original, they raised her with love and care, protecting them at all times, most certainly living up to the trust that her father gave to them in the first place.

The prince, who originally was the ace, the means of breaking the curse that the title character set on Aurora, ends up being absolutely irrelevant in this film. He's an outright red herring, serving as a means for the filmmakers to smack you, the audience, over the head with the ludicrously lame twist. In the original, he was the one who broke Aurora out of her death-like sleep; here, he kisses her, and nothing happens because for the sake of the movie, he and Aurora never really had any lasting contact let alone any chance to form such feelings. Well, Aurora seemed to feel something after their first and only true encounter, but that might have just been her loneliness dissipating for a bit. So who is the one who'd deliver true love's kiss? Well, none other than Maleficent. See where this is all going?

Sharlto Copley, previously seen in sleeper hits such as District 9 and the decent follow-up Elysium, doesn't really fit into this film. He's a solid actor and all, but he's above his role and he inadvertently hurts his own performance just being there. Plus it felt like a cruel cop-out to suddenly thrust the antagonist role onto him, considering his position in the story, just for the rather silly twist.

There's a battle scene that plays out when Maleficent has grown into, well, Angelina Jolie, whom takes it upon herself to protect the Moors from a king that never seemed to care about the place until this point of the film. It's actually quite brief, so you won't get anything of the caliber seen in the second & third Lord of the Rings film entries. Tree & rock monsters enter the fray, including a serpent of sorts, and Maleficent herself shows superhuman strength with the flapping of her wings alone. The king is knocked on the ground, Maleficent tells him off, and that's that. Later he's seen dying, or something, so he seeks vengeance in the form of a volunteer, and that's where Maleficent's downfall (which is downplayed in this film, as per the twist I mentioned previously) is set in motion.

Some later scenes look very Avatar-esque. One of them has Aurora, assumed to be sixteen-years old, basking in the fantastical glory of the Moors, interacting with the various creatures within as if she were their goddess. They take to her so quickly it seems because she's so happy and whatever, whereas Maleficent is kind of the opposite. Now, all of this would have meant something had the film been faithful to the original storyline, but it ends up falling flat. Maleficent lost her will to do good in the world, at least in the original, whereas here she just seems to have a long-lasting hissy fit. The one thing this film has on the original tale is that the tragedy that sets her downfall in motion is actually quite tragic, based entirely on betrayal rather than being excluded from a gathering of sorts like in the original fable. Had it been a faithful, albeit still updated take on the old tale, there would have actually been an interplay at hand, people would have had a reason to care about these spectacles showcasing Aurora's synergy with the wonders of the Moors, and Maleficent wouldn't end up so...tame. All considering the reason she is sent on a downward spiral in the first place:

She loses her wings to Stefan, Copley's character in the film.

Now that development, something that had the film not tapered off toward the end, would have endeared it, seemed like a great way to not only show why Maleficent would lose her good ways, but to also make the audience feel a bit of sympathy for her. How was she to know that Stefan would choose to steal her wings, even if he had good intentions in doing so? Some filmgoers might not even recognize the reasons for his sacrifice, as it is something you need to pay attention to to understand, but it's very much there. However, when the final battle is raging, Aurora finds Mal's wings locked up and, alive & moving on their own. It makes little sense but bare with me here: she then proceeds to smash the wing's prison, and they fly themselves to Maleficent while she battles Stefan's knights and attach themselves to where they originally were. The "what-the-fuck"-ery on display here is so huge because it ruins a lot of what could have made this flick more likeable.

One particular reason it ruins the film for me, and has seemingly so for others, is because of the question, "why didn't her wings do this before, such as while Stefan was riding them to the kingdom, with little to restrain them from flying back to Maleficent?" And another question arises after you've watched her conjure all manner of spells throughout the duration of the movie; "If Maleficent has all of these cool powers, then why oh why can't she grow a new pair of wings, or fly in some magical way?" In fact, in one scene where Stefan's knights are trying to barge their way into the Moors, well after Maleficent has closed it off in anticipation, Maleficent holds the group of knights back with, amongst other spells, the ability to make them fly into the air. Well, they don't of their volition, but if she could do that then what the fuck stopped her from granting herself something like flight, without wings?

But somehow the film is (supposed to be) better than it should be because the narrator knows the truth about Maleficent, because she is Aurora. If this revelation prior to the last slide of the film was supposed to shock people, then I'm not one of them. Given that the narrator seems to play no role in the film for more than half of its run, and only served to provide conniving expository dialogue whenever she was heard, the reveal that we were listening to Aurora all along suffers from what most of this film does: it falls flat.

C-

The Good:

+ Angelina Jolie was made for this role.

+ Some nice, if mostly unoriginal fantasy spectacles to be seen.

+ Arbitrary battle scene for those who like arbitrary battle scenes.

The Bad:

- No one else can match Angelina Jolie.

- Many important and interesting plot points & characters were neutered for whatever reason (such as the huge importance the three faeries played in the original).

- That twist...

- Arbitrary battle scene, not for those who dislike arbitrary battle scenes or for those who feel they don't need to be in every damn movie, especially those of fantasy.

- Prince Phillip doesn't need to be here, given the twist, and the utter lack of character development How a 60-plus animated film got this right is beyond me.

- The Kingdom disposes of all known knitting wheels and sets fire to them. Somehow, after about sixteen years, they're still there, waiting for Aurora to touch them.

- Nothing special about the casting choices.

- You might actually feel bad for Stefan dying. I mean, he was driven a bit crazy by the hyperbolic reaction to his well-intended betrayal that Maleficent was exhibiting. Let's see: severing the wings of the one you considered a good friend to guarantee her safety even though you never end up admitting this to her, versus Maleficent cursing your only daughter to prick her finger on a knitting wheel to fall into a death-like sleep forever. Yeah I would side with Stefan on this one.

-  Maleficent does not turn into a dragon.

- Very unoriginal and steals a lot from many other fantasy stories & films. Avatar & The Lord of the Rings come to mind.