In 1959, Disney released their 16th
feature-length animated film, ‘Sleeping Beauty’, based on the 1697 fairytale
‘La Belle au bois dormant’ by Charles Perrault, which was later adapted by the
Brothers Grimm in 1812 as ‘Little Briar Rose’. While the film received
generally mixed reviews at the time of its release and it also performed rather
disappointingly at the box office, it has since become a Disney classic and one
of the greatest elements of the entire film was its main villain, Maleficent.
Easily one of Disney’s finest villains, Maleficent was graceful and elegant,
but also incredibly sinister at the same time, even if her motivations in the
film were rather questionable, being that she was ‘offended’ at not getting an
invitation to Princess Aurora’s christening. Still, she was a great villain and
now with this new film ‘Maleficent’ we get to see her side of the story because
this basically is the live-action version of the story but told from
Maleficent’s point of view. Because of this, this film offers quite a different
take on the story than one might expect, but overall it does offer an
intriguing new look on the story ‘we thought we knew’ and of course is
headlined by the terrific performance by the perfectly cast Angelina Jolie as
the ‘Mistress of All Evil’.
Before she became known as the ‘Mistress of All Evil’,
Maleficent (Angelina Jolie) was once a young fairy who lived in a magical realm
known as the Moors, which bordered a human kingdom. One day, she meets and befriends
a peasant boy named Stefan and eventually they fall in love. However years
later, when Stefan (Sharlto Copley) returns to her after having not seen her
for a long time, he ends up betraying her by cutting off her wings so that he
can become king. Heartbroken and outraged, Maleficent enacts revenge on Stefan
on the day of his daughter Aurora’s christening. Maleficent curses the infant
child proclaiming that on her 16th birthday, she will prick her
finger on the spindle of a spinning wheel and fall into a sleep-like death, and
can only be awakened by true love’s kiss. In the hopes that this curse can be
avoided, Stefan has Aurora sent away from the kingdom to live in hiding with
three pixies (Imelda Staunton, Lesley Manville, and Juno Temple) until the day
after her 16th birthday. But as Aurora (Elle Fanning) starts to grow
up, Maleficent, who ends up taking care of her more than the pixies do, begins to
grow more attached to her, resulting in her trying to find a way to remove the
curse from Aurora before it’s too late.
Now if you’re coming into this expecting Maleficent to be
the bad guy, you’re probably going to be rather disappointed because it’s more
like ‘Wicked’ in that she’s the protagonist in this. Sure she does curse Aurora
with the sleeping curse and for a little while early on she doesn’t like her
that much, but for most of the movie she’s just a misunderstood character who
was betrayed by King Stefan, the real main antagonist of the film, which ends
up leading her on a path of revenge. But she soon starts to care more for
Aurora, whose cheerful persona starts to change Maleficent’s outlook on humans.
Overall, the relationship between the two, which is sort of like a ‘mother-daughter’
relationship, is the best part, and ultimately the heart, of the movie. The
movie also benefits from some pretty excellent visuals, which is not that
surprising seeing how this was directed by someone who’s been a production
designer, which help immerse us in this film’s universe. Plus, at just 97
minutes, making it the shortest of Disney’s recent live-action fairytales, the
film doesn’t overstay its welcome and never drags at any point.
As it’s been well documented by pretty much everyone who’s
seen this movie, Angelina Jolie does a fantastic job as Maleficent. She looks
the part, acts the part, and was just a perfect choice to portray the character.
She’s so good here that… well, she admittedly overshadows everyone else in the
film. Now I’m not saying that the rest of the cast is bad; it’s just that this
movie really belongs to Jolie and the fact is that Maleficent is focused on the
most here more than anyone else. While Aurora is just your average ‘nice’
princess (Prince Phillip (Brenton Thwaites) is really just serving as a cameo
here), if I remember correctly she wasn’t the most compelling lead in the
original animated film either. Still, Elle Fanning does do a very good job with
the rather limited material she has to work with but as I stated earlier, the
relationship between her and Jolie in this movie is really top-notch. Sharlto
Copley also doesn’t really have as much to work with as Stefan but he also does
a pretty good job here as well. However, the three pixies here do get rather
annoying at times, not in their performances but how they are portrayed in
this. I haven’t seen the original ‘Sleeping Beauty’ film in quite some time,
but I don’t recall the three fairies in that film being as incompetent as these
three are. It’s clearly shown that Maleficent is a far better caretaker of
Aurora than them. I really don’t know what went wrong in the translation from
animation to live-action, but here they’re more like the Three Stooges.
When it comes to Disney’s recent big-budget live-action
fairytales, I find that I like ‘Maleficent’ more than ‘Alice in Wonderland’ and
almost as I much as I liked ‘Oz the Great and Powerful’. At the end of the day,
‘Maleficent’ turns out to be a pretty good film. Director Robert Stromberg, who
has been mostly known for his work as a fantastic production designer on films
like ‘Avatar’ as well as the previously mentioned ‘Alice’ and ‘Oz’, makes a
pretty good first debut with this film and a lot of that is because of the
brilliant performance by Angelina Jolie as Maleficent. Sure, she’s not the bad
guy in this, which I’m guessing will be rather disappointing for some people,
but her relationship with Aurora in this film certainly makes up for it. And
while Jolie does overshadow everyone else in the film, they all do a pretty
fine job even if they don’t have as much to work with. Plus, the film has
really nice visuals and doesn’t really drag at any point seeing how it is much
shorter than both ‘Oz’ and ‘Alice’. So overall, if you’re okay with the fact
that this film’s Maleficent isn’t the main villain, then I do recommend this
movie because I don’t think that having Maleficent be the protagonist in this
betrays who the character was in the original film. It’s just a very
interesting new take on the story of ‘Sleeping Beauty’ from her perspective.
Rating: 4/5
No comments:
Post a Comment