It’s been two days since I’ve seen Maleficent and I’m still mulling it over in my mind.
Should you see it? ABSOLUTELY.
Angelina Jolie makes this movie and she alone is worth the price of admission. As for the rest of the movie, I’m just unsure.
The storyline is a good one. As with most villains, there’s usually a story behind them to explain why they are who they are, and this backstory is intriguing. The movie starts with Maleficent as a young fairy living in the moors, who befriends a boy named Stefan. As Stefan grows older, his human desires for power take over and he betrays Maleficent in an act of severe cruelty.
Driven by revenge and a fierce desire to protect the moors over which she presides, Maleficent cruelly places an irrevocable curse upon the human king’s newborn infant Aurora. As the child grows, Aurora is caught in the middle of the seething conflict between the forest kingdom she has grown to love and the human kingdom that holds her legacy. Maleficent realizes that Aurora may hold the key to peace in the land and is forced to take drastic actions that will change both worlds forever.
During the movie, I was completely drawn in. But the more and more I think on it, it was only due to Angelina. King Stefan was just so…meh. I expected a lot from his character and felt that the director could have done so much more with him. I wanted depth and confusion and some sort of acknowledgement that he once had feelings for Maleficent, but none of that happened. Maybe if the movie had been longer (it’s only an hour and a half) they could have created more of a story arc, but it is what it is.
I was also underwhelmed by Elle Fanning, which was disappointing. Again, her character felt very one dimensional. I get that she was supposed to be this bright, happy creature, but it felt a little flat.
All that being said, I really loved the movie. The cinematography was simply stunning and the make-up team deserves an award for Angelina’s costume and facial prosthetics. She looked both beautiful and ridiculously evil all at once. I was fascinated by her eyes (contact lenses, of course)
There are some intense scenes that might scare small children. A mature first grader could likely handle it or one who was obsessed with Sleeping Beauty.
My kids (5 and 3) won’t be seeing it for awhile. We’ll start with the animated original (set to be released from the vault in the fall).
I give it 2.5 out of 4 starts, but Angelina gets a 4.
Maleficent is rated PG and has a run time of 97 minutes. It opens in theaters nationwide today.
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