Maleficent (**½)

Directed by: Robert Stromberg

Starring: Angelina Jolie, Elle Fanning, Sharlto Copley, Sam Riley, Imelda Staunton, Juno Temple, Leslie Manville, Brenton Thwaites, Kenneth Cranham

Seen: June  8^th 2014

**½ Out of ****

Maleficent is an “if you think you know the story, think again” reimagining of Sleeping Beauty, with Maleficent, the fairy who cursed Aurora (Sleeping Beauty) in the first place, set up as a protagonist who merely exhibits evil tendencies. The movie tries to convince the viewer that Maleficent is nothing but a motherly figure acting out of hurt when betrayed, and turns the tale of Sleeping Beauty on its head, with only plot details remaining intact while characters and their motives blatantly change from what we knew.

The story starts a long time ago in a place far, far away, when Maleficent was a young fairy. She was very powerful and effectively ruled the Moors, a realm where magic existed right next to the human realm. Stefan, a young boy, came to the Moors and was cornered by the guards of the Moors. Maleficent confronted him, and the two became friends, Maleficent falling in love with him. Stefan was however tempted by worldly power and returned to the Moors less and less, rather following his aspirations to become king. Years later the king (Cranham) decides to invade the Moors, and Maleficent (Jolie) commands her army of magical creatures to victory over his forces while gravely injuring the king. On his deathbed he promises the kingdom to the one who kills Maleficent, and Stefan (Copley), in his blind ambition, heads to the Moors to ‘reconcile’ with Maleficent. He betrays and drugs her, and when he can’t bring himself to kill her, he cuts off her wings and presents them to the king as proof of her death.

Stefan becomes king, his betrayal turning Maleficent into the embodiment of the saying “Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned”. When a daughter is born to Stefan, the fairies Knotgrass (Staunton), Thistlewitt (Temple), and Flittle (Manville) go to bless her, but they’re interrupted by Maleficent who blesses Aurora but adds the Sleeping Beauty finger-pricking curse, to be lifted only by true love’s kiss. This sends the king into complete and utter obsessive madness and he scours the kingdom to destroy all spinning wheels while also doubling the former king’s efforts to kill Maleficent. He sends Knotgrass, Thistlewitt, and Flittle away with Aurora, to raise her in a hidden location and only return her the day after her sixteenth birthday. Maleficent manages to find them through her friend Diaval (Riley), a crow she saved from death whom she can turn into a human, or anything, at will. She spies on them as Aurora (Fanning) grows up, and becomes an unwitting godmother to Aurora, as the fairies are useless. The curse remains in power however, and events eventually spiral towards the inevitable, but with a new flavour added as Maleficent is now, of course, not all bad anymore.

Maleficent features an amalgamation of very good and very bad special effects in an impressive world created as backdrop for this reimagined fairy tale. The movie is as melodramatic as a children’s fairy tale can be while at the same time being too dark for any child under the age of about 10 years, I would say. Angelina Jolie is very good as the not-just-evil Maleficent, and manages to pull of the horns she wears through the entire movie without a hitch. Sharlto Copley is in my opinion a good actor, but I find it strange that they decided on a Scottish young Stefan, and that a South African actor had to play him as king – he is good, but why not get an actual Scottish actor for the part?

While the movie looks good (for the most part) and while some impressive interpretations and their representations by actors and special effects animators grace the screen, it all doesn’t come together as good as it might have. I distinctly felt that padding required to flesh out the story to a full movie was more desperate than really well-planned, as there’s a lot that felt almost unnecessary as the movie wound down to its ending after 97 minutes that actually felt quite a bit longer than that. Some will enjoy Maleficent, but I’m not part of that group, at best it is a grasp at thin air.