Film Review: Maleficent

Maleficent    7/10

Director: Robert Stromberg

Starring: Angelina Jolie, Elle Fanning, Sharlto Copley

Plot: the untold story of Maleficent unfolds as a curse is put on an infant princess.

Maleficent is, as another critic has pointed out, magnificent. It’s magnificent in the sense that its world building is spot-on. Except the opening sequence which is a little shabby on the CGI front, the rest of the picture builds the world of Sleeping Beauty with absolute ease. Director Robert Stromberg has a real eye for detail and has successfully transformed the animated original into a visual feast. The battles are enormous in scale and the effects do, at times, really flourish.

Maleficent, however, suffers from some really serious flaws. To begin with, a film that markets itself as a dark retelling of an untold story feels a little under-baked at a painfully short 97 minutes. On a budget of $180 million, it feels as if the entire production has been pushed into a teeny, tiny box that doesn’t have nearly enough time to explore.

For starters, this really isn’t the dark retelling we’ve been promised. Yes, it does have its rather depressing and ominous moments, but it’s actually incredibly light-hearted, humorous but altogether silly for the most part. When you get Angelina Jolie on-board for a Disney production on this scale, it’s a missed opportunity to use her for anything other than her incredible acting abilities. Unfortunately, the script doesn't always let her do this; it’s overridden with clichés, cringe-worthy moments and random comments that really do not fit with the rest of the picture.

Another point of criticism for this is its pointless characters. Sam Riley as Diaval (Maleficent’s sidekick) is painfully unnecessary and takes up precious running time that we want to spend solely with Jolie. The three fairies also – Imelda Staunton, Juno Temple and Lesley Manville – are sweet and all, but err on the side of irritating all too often. It all feels a little wrong.

Finally, to the major lead that gives this film the worthy ‘MUST SEE’ stamp. Angelina Jolie, who has chosen film projects sparingly, finally takes on the villainous, leading role we've all been waiting for. As previously mentioned, she doesn’t portray the dark villain we all wanted to see for the entire film, but we do get hints of this, particularly in the birth scene. It’s possibly the highlight of the entire film; the doors bursting open, the wind blowing the chandelier and the dreaded curse placed on the young Aurora. Another excellent scene early on involves Maleficent being betrayed by someone dear to her. It shows off Jolie’s inner fire and strength as the Disney villain. She’s captivating and nothing less than perfect in this, and it’s definitely up there with her role in Changeling, which was incredible enough.

In Conclusion: Maleficent is confused with itself; the big battles we were teased in the trailer are mostly over within the first 30 minutes and the untold story of Maleficent completely twists and contradicts the original, in a manner that simply doesn’t work. However, Angelina Jolie is phenomenal here. She’ll take your breath away at times and you’ll want to see this again and again solely for her – Jolie was born to play this role.