Maleficent Reviews

As 'Sleeping Beauty' is one of my favourite films, Disney, animated or otherwise, and Maleficent is a contender for the scariest and most memorable female villain of the Disney canon, despite the mixed reviews 'Maleficent' did maintain my interest.

Finally watching it after being very behind with film-watching, 'Maleficent' does have enough to salvage it from being a complete waste but largely it is really underwhelming.

The best thing about 'Maleficent' is the performance of Angelina Jolie. Jolie looks incredible in her knockout costume and make-up (which are spot on for the character), and she is sinister and alluring while also bringing some wit to some scenes. The film also looks gorgeous, it's beautifully shot with eye-catching and richly atmospheric set and costume design and the director's long-time experience in special effects work clearly shows in the film. The score is whimsical, haunting, hypnotic and beautifully orchestrated, as one would expect from James Newton Howard.

In terms of story, the highlight is the suspenseful and quite powerful Christening scene, that gave the film and Maleficent's character so much promise and set the tone brilliantly. Also loved the delectably witty and subtly dangerous rapport between Maleficent and her servant Diaval, played creepily by Sam Riley, it is by far the best-executed and believable of all the character relationships in the film.

However, part of the problem is that after how well Maleficent (film and character) is set up and after the character making such an impact as one of Disney's most iconic and scariest villains it just didn't seem believable no matter how much the film tried seeing her softened and more sympathetic. More problematic is that in the attempts to give Maleficent this dimension and origins story, most of the rest of the characters suffer, not just in being bland but in some cases being distorted. The worst case being King Stefan being made into a shockingly one-dimensional and underwritten villain. Prince Phillip is almost completely useless (Aurora's mother even more so), even for a plot device, and the three good fairies are irritating and their inept stupidity makes them far less endearing.

With the performances, the only great one is Jolie's (Riley's is also effective but his role isn't anywhere near as juicy). Elle Fanning is a very vacuous and at worst somnambulist Aurora. Say what you will about the Aurora in the animated film being a dull catalyst in her film, she is at least one of the most beautiful visually Disney protagonists, radiates in charm and her singing voice is one of the most distinctive and loveliest in a Disney film ever, which at least makes her memorable, all three attributes of which Fanning lacks with her Aurora. Sharlto Copley both fails to engage and over-compensates as Stefan, Brenton Thwaites is bland while Juno Temple and fine actresses Lesley Manville and Imelda Staunton are charmless and annoying, their slapstick comic relief falling as flat as a pancake.

Linda Woolverton's script is very lazy here, with clichéd and dreary dialogue and very clumsy attempts at being funny. Apart from the christening scene and the scenes between Maleficent and Diaval, the story is a mess of inconsistencies and half-baked ideas seen before in Disney films that executed them far better (notably 'Frozen'), not enough of it enchants and entertains and it is really hard to swallow Aurora being so forgiving as easily as that.

Overall, starts off great and has benefits of looking beautiful, having a wonderfully composed music score and a lead performance that couldn't have been more perfect. But it isn't enchanting or entertaining enough really, and the way the other characters are written and the flawed execution of the script and story hurt 'Maleficent' severely. 4/10 Bethany Cox

If you have ever wondered what a Disney rape-revenge movie would look like, then Maleficent is the movie for you! There’s a fascinating, very adult movie lurking somewhere underneath the Uncanny Valley hellscape of Maleficent’s shiny surfaces, but it’s continually compromised by having to try to fit safely into a family entertainment molding. The entire thing is more fascinating as hybrid failure than it is as an entire work.

 

The major problems of the movie start early and reoccur often. Janet McTeer’s narration is ham-fisted and unnecessary. The Moors, the mythological forest where Maleficent lives and much of the action takes place, lacks grit, texture, or any tether to a physical world as it’s an oppressive CGI monstrosity populated by cutesy critters and a few impressively designed creatures. A simplistic worldview of “men are bad, women are good; friendship is good, sex is bad.” While the forest and its denizens are clearly striving for Hayao Miyazaki-like wonder and awe, but clearly doesn’t understand or capture the more complicated worldview that his film possess.

 

Still, there’s a few bright spots buried within. The most obvious one is Angelina Jolie’s performance where she’s clearly having a ball getting to play as big and broad as she wants. She’s most unnerving and engrossing in the role in her stillest moments where her preternatural regality and inhumane otherness give her Maleficent an animalistic edge. Sure, watching her bellow and rage is pleasing, but she’s downright scary in scenes where she speaks slowly and her movements are limited towards a tilt of the head or a subtle movement in her facial muscles.

 

While the CGI is omnipresent and rubbery, there’s still a rich sense of color that is so blinding and vibrant that it threatens to bleed out of the frame at any moment. There’s also a certain beauty and haunting grace to the living tree creatures, especially a gigantic serpent-like beast that glides through the earth with the fluidity of a dolphin in the sea. And Maleficent’s servant, Diaval, a crow she changes into a human (Sam Riley), a wolf-like beast, a feathered horse, and a dragon. While the dragon’s effects pale in comparison to Drogon on Game of Thrones, its feathered design and slithering movements are quite engaging in the moment.

 

Yet for these measly positives, the film is largely a muddled and confused misfire wrapped up in a cellophane case to try and keep it all sealed up. The “brand deposit” description thrown around by Disney’s own movers and shakers perfectly encapsulate what is wrong with these live-action retreads. They turn the company into a dog eating its own vomit by leashing the creative teams and only giving them so free a reign to explore. Maleficent has some darker impulses, but they’re routinely defanged and declawed by the Mouse House’s demands.

 

It’s clear that Mickey and company were chasing the Lord of the Rings dollars, but never bothered to study just what made that trilogy so effective. It wasn’t the massive hordes of CG bodies clashing over and over and over again, but the real time we spent with the characters and caring about their world, their actions, and their stakes. Maleficent is happy to give us a complicated anti-heroine, but Stefan is not even a one-note villain. Maybe a better actor than Sharlto Copley could have brought more ambiguity to the role, but Copley takes any and every excuse to go big. There’s no variation to him as a character or portrayal, just the sight of an actor aggressively humping one-note over and over until his inevitable demise.

 

The best scene is the morning after where Jolie goes from disbelief to distraught victim to avenging primordial fairy. She eventually reclaims her agency, her power, and uses her anger as fuel to establish the Moors as her own kingdom with her reigning supreme. It’s shocking that Disney would ok such a dramatically rich sequence, and one that is so thematically loaded, that it stands out for the more adult film threatening to blow out of the center at any given moment.

 

It never does, though. We’re soon quickly saddled with the trio of fairies that must care for Aurora (predominantly played by an appropriately ethereal Elle Fanning), and they’re largely incidental to the plot. They’re merely a distaff Three Stooges, or a horrendously bad motion-capture job of the three talented ladies trying valiantly to make these parts work. Their disappearance from the narrative is large and noted, especially since their absences take place in scenes where Aurora and Maleficent form a surrogate mother-daughter bond. These three are supposed to be her guardian, and they can’t even complete the one job they were given, nor do they ever seem aware that Aurora is just gone for long stretches of time.

 

Maleficent is at its best when it shines its light upon the implicit symbolism of sexual violence that lurks in nearly all fairy tales, or when it merely shifts its attention to watching Jolie in her regalia that positions her as something both familiar and alien. At least the sisters doing it for themselves rethinking of the Sleeping Beauty fairy tale gave something new and unique as a base guide for this movie. It’s sloppy and shackled and not entirely successful as a corrective text, but it tried. You just have to get used to staring at some eerie, ugly CGI and an overpowering mistaken thought that more-is-better.

Right now, it seems that Disney have found a new gimmick (as if with Marvel and Star-Wars, they needed something else to generate even more revenue…) and they keep releasing some really successful live-action adaptations of their timeless fairy tales. To be honest, since I wasn’t really blown away by the really flat ‘Cinderella’, I wasn’t really expecting much from this flick but, I have to admit it, it was not bad at all after all. Indeed, this time, they decided to give this adaptation some twist by focusing on the villain, Maleficent, instead of the usual princess, in this case, Aurora. It was a nice move as Maleficent has always been one of the best Disney villains. On top of that, Angelina Jolie was a great choice for the part, she obviously had a lot of fun with this material and I thought she gave a solid performance. To be honest, I think they did actually cheat a little bit though. Indeed , even though this movie was supposed to be about a villain, in this version, Maleficent was actually not so bad after all and it would have been interesting if they had made the whole thing even darker but I guess it would have been pretty much unwatchable for the young children (my daughter already thought that it was pretty scary as it was). Anyway, to conclude, even though it wasn’t really a masterpiece, it was a decent fairy tale with some impressive visuals and I think it is worth a look, especially if you like the genre.

Well..well.

I finally got to see this movie. Now I can see what all the hype was all about. I thought the cinematography was wonderful! The story line was suspenseful, and beautifully crafted.
I wish I got the chance to watch this in the theatre (for it's 3D amazement).

I watched it twice yesterday!

Loved Angelina Jolie as Maleficent!

It's always pretty interesting to see a different perspective on a classic story. There are some pretty good casting choices in this that caught my eye. There were many amazing creature and character designs. It's quite visually stunning as well. Before Maleficent becomes evil I thought it was kind of cheesy and Angelina Jolie's acting was a little awkward. I did think once she actually became the Maleficent that we all know she fit it perfectly. There are some pretty intense moments that I wasn't expecting. The battle scenes are pretty cool albeit a little short. It's interesting to see Maleficent still have humor amongst her wickedness. Some of it didn't go as I would liked it to. It was different than I was expecting it to be. It felt a bit short and resolved to quickly though to be honest. I actually enjoyed this more than I thought I would anyways. I did like the way they made the story in this version even if a bit cheesy. The ending was great.

This movie seemed to not know if it was Arthur or Martha. The trailer promised us a dark movie which was evident in some scenes but did not mix well with the light hearted Disney spin in many other scenes.

The pace of the movie was way too fast while Auora was growing up and the story line was just wrong for this movie.

The movie looked great but it lacked substance from a story line perspective, almost like a report which presents well with binding and laminated pages but with utter crap inside.

Maleficent: the newest addition to the "gritty/revisioned fairy tale" trend. Starting with Tim Burton's Alice In Wonderland, and continuing through Mirror Mirror, Oz the Great and Powerful, and Jack the Giant Slayer (among others). And while Maleficent doesn't improve much over these other efforts, one at least gets the feeling that it was created with good intentions, as opposed to merely being another product cashing in on a hot trend. Indeed, there are some great concepts in this film. But alas, that is all they are: concepts. Never are they fully fleshed out, nor developed enough to leave the impression they might have with a little more care.

This is a revisioning of 1959's Sleeping Beauty, told through the perspective of the villainess, Maleficent. In this story, Maleficent was not always wicked. She was once a guardian of the fairies, though she became cold and wicked when she was betrayed. Betrayed by whom? Her boyfriend.

Yup, we're going the Oz the Great and Powerful route here. Another popular villain whose motive roots from a break-up.

Now to be a fair, I think it's a good - if not great - idea to make a movie about the Maleficent character to flesh out her motives and personality. Because frankly, she had neither in the 1959 film. Unfortunately, her motive is beyond weak. Some Disney fans will be outraged.

But trust me; there are good ideas here. The entire film basically revolves around Maleficent's relationship with Princess Aurora. The three fairies in charge of caring for Aurora are terribly incompetent, so in order for Aurora to survive long enough for a devastating curse to work, Maleficent needs to keep Aurora alive, though she hates her. But over time, Maleficent starts to care for the girl. And to my surprise, this idea really works. It's not perfect execution, but it works.

Unfortunately, only about half of this film is devoted to this relationship. The other is about King Stephen (who betrayed Maleficent to begin with), and the paranoia and confusion he is dealing with, due to his daughter being cursed. This part of the story isn't interesting, nor believable. It's been done before, and done better, and it's just plain dull.

There are (very, very, very brief) flashes of dark humor, that one wishes were developed further, in order to add to the Maleficent character. Some of Maleficent's powers are interesting as well, but because they're never fully explained, the extent of her powers are unknown. She has the ability to morph animals into other beings, the ability to heal, to curse, etc. It leads to some weak bits when one wonders why she can't simply blast her foes out of the way.

It all leads back to the script, which feels very much like a first draft. There are great ideas here, but they're never developed enough to work as well as they might have. The tone is all over the place, switching from gritty to childish. Indeed, the first 10 minutes of the film are almost nauseatingly child-like, while other scenes are remarkably intense for a children's film. Of course, it's never very clear what audience exactly Maleficent is targeting.

On top of all that, the ending is very weak, and very disappointing. Granted, there is one sort of twist near the end that's actually kind of sweet. But ultimately, its impact is diminished due to the nearly-identical twist used in last year's Frozen.

Other than Maleficent herself, the main selling point here is the visuals. And yes, they look pretty good. I was rarely blown away, but they are still pretty to look at. Be warned, however. We witness some very odd looking CGI characters, and some flight sequences near the beginning that rival the early Potter films in their unbelievability.

As one would expect, Angelina Jolie is great as the title villainess. She is given a character with a lot of dimensions and depth, and she handles it marvelously. She straddles the line of scenery-chewing early on, but she improves as the film continues.

The rest of the cast is fine, but not remarkable. Imelda Staunton, Juno Temple, and Lesley Manville portray the three fairies in charge of caring for Aurora, and they are amusing, though they are completely forgotten in the middle portion of the film. Perhaps it's for the better, as it allows more time to focus on Maleficent and Aurora, but at the same time, it's very odd that they're just dropped from the film until later.

But eyes will roll upon Breton Thwait's entrance as Prince Phillip (a thankfully small role). He looks like he came right out of a boy-band, and not in an intentionally comedic way. Tweenage girls may swoon, but anyone else will be groaning or suppressing laughter.

James Newton Howard's score (while sorely missing references to "Once Upon A Dream") is both majestic and powerful. There are some beautiful piano bits, and some marvelous orchestral pieces. Ignoring some unfortunate electronic elements near the end, James gets it right, and it's grand.

Maleficent is the framework for a good movie. There are parts in place, and mere suggestions of bright ideas and concepts. But it never fully comes together, and the weak writing is partly to blame. Had this been given some more re-writes, and a little more time for development, Maleficent could have been something great. As it stands, it's less offensive than many other revisionist fairy tales, but it remains disappointing. Other than the surprisingly well developed relationship between Aurora and Maleficent, the only really notable bits are when the spirit of the 1959 original shines through (the christening scene where Maleficent curses Aurora is one of the best in the film). It's a shame that a little more emphasis had not been placed on recognizing the 1959 film, but that's just another item on a long check-list of undeveloped ideas that prevent Maleficent from living up to its animated source.

Rambling, incoherent mess, that might contain minor spoilers.

Disney's 1958 animated film by the name of Sleeping Beauty is one of cinema's greatest classics when it comes to animation and entertainment for children. It told a sweet and charming story, while introducing us to someone who ended up being one of the most iconic villains ever, and arguably one of Disney's greatest accomplishments. So when the people at Disney decided that they wanted to create a film that focuses on one of their villains, who would be more suiting than the evil, sinister and devil-horned Maleficent? Expectations were high after seeing the excellent atmospheric and moody trailer with Lana Del Rey's haunting cover of "Once Upon a Dream". The possibility of a darker, but family friendly look into Maleficent's rise to evil are definitely intriguing. Unfortunately, that's not what Maleficent brings us, and it might just end up being one of the biggest disappointments of the year.

Quite early on we realize that whatever we learned from Sleeping Beauty is not entirely true, and that the story didn't go exactly as it was told in 1959. During the first minutes we're filled in sweetness and sugar as a young Maleficent, with her devil-horns and eagle-wings, flies around the faerie kingdom of The Moors, being good and kind, and such. Naturally she meets a young human boy, whom she falls madly in love with. Who then, years later, betrays her by cutting of her wings so that he'll be king. Heartbroken, she devotes herself to revenge, and we can see glimpses of the Maleficent we know, as she then later turns up at the castle to curse Aurora, in a similar scene to the one we witnessed in the animated film.



And now, the problems start pouring down one by one. The opening of the film might have been a bit too cutesy for my personal taste, but it did at least offer a perfectly reasonable motivation for Maleficent's fall from grace. So with that out of the way, and Maleficent menacingly curing Aurora, one will be forgiven for thinking that we're going to get the film we expected and waited for. That didn't happen, which caused quite a lot of confusion for me. The film seems fixed on the idea that Maleficent is not an evil witch, but essentially good. Setting her up as some sort of anti-hero as she's constantly saving Aurora from danger, being her "fairy godmother" as Aurora herself calls her. This is confusing because it makes Maleficent's motivations very unclear, which causes me to set up to primary questions. Why is she doing the things she's doing, and what is the point of it all? What's the point of telling a parallel story from the viewpoint of a great villain, if you're going to end up in a completely different place?

However, that itself might not necessarily be so bad if the alternative is good. Unfortunately, the alternative we're served here is not very good. Tone issues are a main problem throughout the entire film as it constantly changes from cute, sugary, light-hearted moments to darker, more serious moments. The three fairies are mostly guilty for causing that, as they're a bunch of bumbling idiots, causing more annoyance than laughter. While Aurora struts around with loads of naivety and a huge grin on her face for the most of the time. The prince is even introduced, but serves no other purpose than to bring in more sugar. There's even scenes of Maleficent fooling around, playing tricks on the three fairies for cheap laughs. During these scenes, the tone of the film is so far away from what we get when Maleficent curses Aurora that it feels like two completely different films. Which is also the case whenever it cuts to the king, as he slips more and more into paranoia as he tries to find ways to stop Maleficent. There are many films that struggle in combining light and dark, and Maleficent is yet another example of that. These constant shifts pulls me out of the film. It doesn't help that the film, despite being quite short, feels way too long. The middle drags on way too long, and could very easily have been trimmed. That would also have reduced the tone issue from being giant, too only minor.



Angelina Jolie is perhaps the most suiting person in this world to play Maleficent, with her cheekbones and laughter being perfect attributes to her. And she delivers a damn good performance, particularly the few times she gets to be menacing. Sadly, those moments can be counted on one hand, and Jolie's performance is far more deserving of a better film. It's particularly deserving of a far better written Maleficent. Robber of her villainy, she's just not as interesting, despite their best attempts at turning her into a protagonist. The rest of the cast struggles from poor characterization and none of them comes of as being particularly memorable.

Maleficent is Robert Stromberg first attempt at directing. The man has a background in production design for films like Alice in Wonderland and Oz the Great and Powerful, as well as visual effects, but with Maleficent he takes the director's chair. As the paragraphs above has mentioned, there's clearly some improvements to be made when it comes to directing. He's got a far way to go when it comes to handling characters and tone, as well as structural build up. But when it comes to visuals, the work of him and his team is flawless. Everything looks really good, and it's a wonderful fantasy world he has reimagined. But seeing as there are many films being created today that looks good, it's getting even more important to fill that frame with something beautiful as well. Maleficent does only have a beautiful frame.

It was interesting when Disney announced that they we're going to explore one of their villains, but unfortunately it didn't turn out that well. The visual effects and Angelina Jolie's performance may be enough to satisfy some viewers, but if you're afraid of poor character development, uneven pacing, tonal issues and inconsistency, you're better off leaving Maleficent asleep. Because turning Maleficent good, didn't turn out to be quite good.