Marval Movie

Maleficent is a strange project that seeks to show a different side of one of Disney's most iconic as well as most evil villains of all time.

The movie opens a long time ago in a kingdom far far away, as they do. Where there is a kingdom of humans and a kingdom of fairies and other enchanted creatures. The biggest and strongest is a fairy named Maleficent, with huge eagle wings. She meets a boy named Stefan and a friendship grows. Later in life they meet again and their lives lead them to do terrible things. Maleficent grows into the guardian of the fairy world (Angelina Jolie) and Stefan grows to be an ambitious young man (Sharlto Copley). The king of the humans wages war against the fairies because...he doesn't like them?

Linda Woolverton writes this movie. Woolverton has written Beauty & The Beast, Homeward Bound, The Lion King and many other Disney material. I was very excited to learn that she would be providing the screenplay for this project. Woolverton takes many many liberties with the original material, there are some clever twist on the original and some turns that are just plain unexpected. I herd that there was a rewrite and that could account for the unevenness of the material.

Robert Strongberg directs here, Strongberg is an Oscar winner for his work as an art director for his work on Avatar, Alice in Wonderland (2009) and Oz The Great & Powerful. He has great artistic flare to his movies and he brings it here. The environments are a delight to behold, with creative creatures and landscapes of beauty, with a wide variety of color for contrast. They are like something out of an old fantasy book cover.

King Stefan then has a daughter and on her birthday celebration Maleficent pays her a visit and places a curse on the baby. Which will take effect on her sixteenth birthday, which also means that she will have to be put in the care of three very incompetent fairies.

The fairies really are the worst part of the movie. They don't make any sense, their not funny and seeing them have an infant that they are clearly incapable of looking after is no fun to watch. There is a scene where because of their bickering they fail to see that Aurora is about to walk off a cliff.

The baby then grows into a young girl. Elle Fanning is a super talent that I am a fan of both her an her sisters work. Here though is not the best example of her talents, she's not terrible but she is certainly not giving it her all or isn't given the right amount of direction.

But the big plus for this movie is Angelina Jolie herself, she just owns this role. From the way she walks, the shadow she casts, to the poise in both her eyes and her voice. Both ooze with charisma and evil. You really do believe that she is the drawing come to life.

This movie really doesn't work as a side piece to the original Sleeping Beauty. You wont watch the original, then watch this and say "ow yeah this was what was happening, we just couldn't see it". No, its best that you think of this as a piece of experimental writing where they take the same material and place it in a parallel world. I know how much of a stretch that is but go for it and you should be fine with the material.

For the promotion of this movie Disney have released a cover of the classic song One Upon a Dream by Lana Del Rey. Her version is a hunting reinterpretation for the once whimsical song. Don't expect to hear it until the end credits, sorry, seems like a waste.

Maleficent is a good looking movie with one really strong performance. The rest is either passable, bad, forgettable or just unexpected. This is a movie to look at and admire the artistry more as well as souk up Jolie and the role that she is surprising perfect for.

Rating: 2 1/2 stars out of 4