Maleficent Review
Kind of OK.
The day will come when I finally learn to not get excited by good trailers but that day is not today. (I also like to tell myself that the day will come where I win the lottery, get Congress to pass my mandatory death penalty for Mimes and Clowns law, complete my unstoppable world conquering army of mutant atomic super men, and get a girl to go on more dates than I have fingers on one hand but that day is also not today.) I have been seeing Maleficent trailers for months and each time I get more and more excited. Angelina Jolie as an evil fairy with horns and wings? A clever re-imaging of a classic fairy tail? A battle between what we in the Warhammer world we would call the Wood Elf Forest Spirits and the Bretonians? Amazing special effects and CGI? How can this be anything less than amazing?
Then I see the movie. I’m not going to disparage it. It’s not bad. It’s just not great. It’s more or less just…there. It really tends towards the standard design-by-committee take no chances pap that every other main stream movie is, counting on visuals and star appeal to make up for the lack of creativity and quality writing. Angelina Jolie is pretty amazing and more or less carries the whole movie on her sexy shoulders but her character is so watered down that everything she does leaks impact from every seam. The CGI is as amazing as a $200,000,000 budget will get you (in case you were wondering, $200,000,000 is enough to send 307,692 children to school in Africa. I’m just saying) and there is not a hint of bad acting. It’s just clear that this film was paralyzed into mediocrity by a fear of doing anything outside of the formula.
In truth I am pretty disappointed by Hollywood’s inability to do the whole fairy tale redo thing and have it do more than just suck. I really want to see some cool stories come from the classic Brothers Grim but instead we are fed dross such as Hansel & Gretel, Snow White and the Huntsman, Jack the Giant Slayer, and Mirror Mirror. 
They didn’t all totally suck (well, Hansel & Gretel did, and Jack the Giant Slayer will put you to sleep in the veterinary sense. Image courtesy of the Movie T Shirt category) but every time they come out all I see is more wasted potential. It’s like the goal is to come out with the blandest porridge possible, fulfilling all the minimum nutritional requirements but not much more. Pretty much the gruel they ate in the Matrix. I’d put this movie at the top of that list of films but not by more than a nose.
So what didn’t work in this one? Well, the trailers had me believing that Maleficent was going to be some kind of dark evil queen, casting spells and curses from her twisted desire to cause suffering or perhaps as part of a larger meta goal. Instead we get a hurt young fairy who in truth was not unjustified in wanting revenge on the king. However even her motivation is suspect as very little effort was made in giving her or the king any depth in their characters or their motivation. Instead of being all around evil or even slipping down a dark path Maleficent flips back and forth with ease. The king is both easier and harder to understand.
Of course, since this is a Disney movie there has to be a princess and she is completely stamped out of whatever happy factory they use to cookie cutter them all from. Pretty, brave, kind, and lovable, like ticks on a checklist. While this makes the movie more appealing to little girls (and also helps feed the Disney minimum princesses per year quota) it does not add a lot to the drama and story of the film. 
I thought the interaction between Maleficent and her familiar Diaval 100 times more interesting than anything involving the princess or any other character in the film but even that felt stunted and undeveloped. A lot of the character development was left off the screen.
And then the story itself. Pretty much the exact Sleeping Beauty story with some character padding and one plot twist that was telegraphed in via Western Union about 10 minutes into Act 2. Easily the least surprising plot twist of the last 5 years. I was less surprised when Dusty Crophopper won the race in Planes (Planes 2 coming in soon BTW. Not looking forward to that).
Again, I’m not saying this film was bad. The CGI was awesome, and the action as good as you can get while dragging the 6 ton anchor known as a PG rating. Angelina Jolie breathed life into her otherwise dead character, and like most Disney films there were moments of good feelings and emotions whether you want them or not (even I, as macho as I am, had a moment when I felt some kind of liquid pool up in my eyes. I can only assume it was blood from some earlier fight that I had already forgotten about (possibly against bears or ninjas, or perhaps ninja bears), as anything else could not possibly be expressed from my manly peepers). It was a well done formulaic movie.
SPOILER ALERT If you never read Sleeping Beauty or are the type to be easily surprised by things like light bulbs turning on when you flick the switch you might be annoyed by some of this so skip ahead a bit. The story starts off with Maleficent, a little fairy girl growing up in a fairly land. She meets Stephen, a human and they become friends (and possibly lovers, although that was implied in only the safest manner possible). As an adult Maleficent (Angelina Jolie-Wanted, Salt, Mr. & Mrs. Smith) is the leader of the fairies and has to defend her magical kingdom from the aggression of the neighboring humans. She does so with the help of the local tree spirits (who look suspiciously like Ents) in a battle of PG epicness.
The king (Kenneth Cranham-Layer Cake, Hot Fuzz, Valkyrie) beats an embarrassing retreat and that night declares that whosoever kills Maleficent will be the next king. Adult Stephen (Sharlo Copley-District 9, Elysium, Oldboy) travels to the Moors and hangs out with Maleficent. He drugs her and cuts off her wings (must have been some Roofie) as he feels too guilty to kill her. He gets the crown and marries the kings daughter while Maleficent goes dark side. She rescues a crow and turns him into Diaval (Sam Riley-On the Road, Control, 13), her servant.
The king has a daughter named Aurora and have a christening party. Three tiny and super annoying fairies show up (Lesley Manville-Vera Drake, Secrets & Lies, Another Year; Imelda Staunton-Chicken Run, Much Ado About Nothing, Shakespeare in Love; Juno Temple-Killer Joe, Mr. Nobody, Atonement) to bless the child (um, didn’t the king just rip the wings off their queen? Also didn’t his predecessor just send a huge army to attack the fairies? Sometimes the subtleties of human (and fairy) interaction escapes me).
Maleficent shows up and curses the child to prick it’s finger on it’s 16th birthday and fall into a deathlike sleep. The king sends the princess off to live in the woods with the fairies. Maleficent shows up and keeps an eye on the child, saving her often from the incompetence of the fairies.
Over the years Aurora (Elle Fanning-We Bought a Zoo, Deja Vu, Super 8) grows into a lovely young girl and Maleficent comes to care for her in spite of herself. She attempts to reverse the curse but fails. Some dopey prince shows up (Brenton Thwaites-Oculus, the Blue Lagoon, the Signal). I don’t want to spoil the “twist” so stuff happens, the king tries to kill Maleficent, and the least dangerous dragon since Elliot shows up for another stunning PG battle.
The stars:
Angelina Jolie really managed to keep this movie from being a true snoozefest, and is easy on the eyes even with caked on makeup and cheekbones that you could shave with. One star. I really enjoyed the interaction between Maleficent and Diaval and wish they had played that up more. One star. Acting was all around good. The evil king was an evil king to the hilt, and the princess everything you could want from the last 50 Disney princesses. One star. CGI was phenomenal. Great effects. One star. For all my complaints Maleficent did travel a true character arc. That is such a rarity these days that I have to at least acknowledge it. One star. There was some clever humor in here, both from Maleficent as the evil queen and the three fairies. One star. In general a fun film if you don’t mind predictability. One star. Total: seven stars.
The black holes:
Extremely predictable, and not just based on the fact that it comes from a story hundreds of years old. One black hole. Kind of dry, with no risks taken in any way, shape, or form. Very derivitive of every fairy tale movie ever. I don’t want to give another black hole to a fairy tale movie for being smothered under a PG rating so I will add that one to this point. One black hole. The movie refused to commit Maleficent one way or another on the whole good/evil spectrum. She acts evil but not really and kind of has a legitimate reason to do so. There is nothing more boring than a fence sitter. If she had truly committed only to reverse herself by the end of the film that would have made for a much better picture. One black hole. This movie had a lot of moving parts, none of which seem to integrate well together. I can’t quite put my finger on it but the parts really don’t seem to mesh well in my opinion. One black hole. Total: four black holes.
So three stars. This is the very top of my mediocre movie. I really think this film could have been so much more. Angelina was great, and there were some awesome elements that could have been the framework of an amazing epic. Instead we get another connect the dots film that once you are done connecting them you realize it is a picture of a flower who’s petals and leaves looks suspiciously like footballs. Worth seeing? Sure. You will probably enjoy it if you have not expectations. Just don’t expect the memory to stick with you terribly long. Date movie? Sure, why not. Name a Disney movie that is not a good date movie. Bathroom break? There is a scene in the last 1/3rd where the three fairies are getting ready for Aurora’s 16th birthday party and are at their most Stooge-like that could be missed easily.
Thanks for reading. Please post comments here on this film or my review. Also follow me on Twitter @NerdKungFu to see new reviews as I post them up. I have to write up Blended and Million Dollar Arm still so lots coming out. Talk to you soon.
“the Infamous” Dave Inman
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