You can also read this review in LunaLunaMag.
Good lord does Angelina Jolie have chiseled cheekbones. Maleficent spins Sleeping Beauty’s story in a new direction. Anchored by a strong performance from Jolie, Maleficent the character is much more interesting instead of horrifying thanks to Maleficent the movie. If only the story realized the character is more interesting than CGI battles.
Maleficent (Jolie) is a fairy living in a magical kingdom bordering a human kingdom. When young, she meets Stefan (Sharlto Copley), whom she falls in love with. However, Stefan’s love is in accumulating power, and as he becomes more powerful in the human world, he transforms into an enemy of Maleficent’s world. Soon he has a daughter, Aurora (Elle Fanning, playing Sleeping Beauty), whom Maleficent curses with deep sleep on her 16th birthday. However, as Maleficent watches the girl grow up, she regrets her decision as the birthday looms.
Angelina Jolie reminds everyone here why she shouldn’t just be known as Brad Pitt’s wife. Jolie’s personality and look fit Maleficent perfectly: equal parts sweet and menacing and uncommon. Jolie gives Maleficent’s villainy the requisite hurt and motivation while maintaining kindness in her heart. This gives Maleficent a slightly unhinged quality creating tension in many scenes she is in. Jolie makes Maleficent a more tragic figure, making the audience root for her change of heart. Frankly, the script keeps Jolie in check too often; when the iron chains are removed, Jolie makes Maleficent a force of nature and joy to behold.
It is the script that keeps Maleficent from become a wonderfully subversive Disney story. Clearly the focus on Maleficent diminished any other supporting character, including Sleeping Beauty herself, into one note characters. Elle Fanning is there too look pretty and given little story whatsoever, much like the fairies that take care of her. Sharlto Copley’s Stefan is so callous that it doesn’t make any sense what Maleficent saw in him. The story makes the big mistake of telling us he was corrupted by power, instead of showing it. 10 minutes more of backstory could have made Stefan and Maleficent’s paranoia of each other a fun diametric opposite study. Instead, Stefan just gets to look crazy. Because of this, the story picks the wrong climax, using a CGI spectacle fight (which, along with the magical Moor, does look spectacular) as its end instead of the fate of Sleeping Beauty, which generates the most excitement and catharsis.
The trend of Disney reimagining its property is in full swing. Last year we got the Wizard of Oz’s origin; this year we get Maleficent’s. Hopefully the stories slowly get better and more subversive as time goes on; Ursula’s backstory has to be fascinating, and you can easily make Scar look like a good guy if telling a tale from his point of view.