Maleficent is a great movie. Angelina Jolie acting has never been better and she brings the main character to life with style. The set design and special effects are amazing, the side characters range from interesting to tolerable, and the story flows nicely. Maleficent does an excellent job of portraying the title character as both a villain and a hero. The christening scene is just as equally deliciously evil as in the animated version, but it doesn't detract from Maleficent heroic moments either. The themes of the price of revenge and greed (more particularly how both can be more damaging than one realizes at the time) are beautiful and don't let anyone off the hook. The humor is kept to a minimum, but great. Snarkiness abound without a toliet/piss joke insight.
There are two issues with this movie. One, is that there's a narrator for most of it. It is used to give a quick info dumps such as explaining that two kingdoms had been neighbors and enemies for a long time and why the three fairies show up to the christening. No instance last longer than a minute and I thought was used well. Allowing the characters to focus on the emotions of the scene, but if narrators annoy you, it might annoy you here.
The second issue is that this is NOT a mere of point of view swap. Parts of the story are heavily changed, large sections are added, and characters are changed. Some of them are for the better, like Aurora is a sweet, happy, naive, girl with some agency instead of a life-less doll. Others, like the fairies, take a turn for the annoying when their forgetfulness and infighting gets turned up a notch. One character is turned into a straight up villain and while their descent into villainy is interesting to watch, fans of the character from the animated version will probably not enjoy it.
Final verdict: It is great, but go see it only if you want to see a new take on Sleeping Beauty not a retelling of the animated movie.
Great if You're Watching for Maleficent
Maleficent is a great movie. Angelina Jolie acting has never been better and she brings the main character to life with style. The set design and special effects are amazing, the side characters range from interesting to tolerable, and the story flows nicely. Maleficent does an excellent job of portraying the title character as both a villain and a hero. The christening scene is just as equally deliciously evil as in the animated version, but it doesn't detract from Maleficent heroic moments either. The themes of the price of revenge and greed (more particularly how both can be more damaging than one realizes at the time) are beautiful and don't let anyone off the hook. The humor is kept to a minimum, but great. Snarkiness abound without a toliet/piss joke insight.
There are two issues with this movie. One, is that there's a narrator for most of it. It is used to give a quick info dumps such as explaining that two kingdoms had been neighbors and enemies for a long time and why the three fairies show up to the christening. No instance last longer than a minute and I thought was used well. Allowing the characters to focus on the emotions of the scene, but if narrators annoy you, it might annoy you here.
The second issue is that this is NOT a mere of point of view swap. Parts of the story are heavily changed, large sections are added, and characters are changed. Some of them are for the better, like Aurora is a sweet, happy, naive, girl with some agency instead of a life-less doll. Others, like the fairies, take a turn for the annoying when their forgetfulness and infighting gets turned up a notch. One character is turned into a straight up villain and while their descent into villainy is interesting to watch, fans of the character from the animated version will probably not enjoy it.
Final verdict: It is great, but go see it only if you want to see a new take on Sleeping Beauty not a retelling of the animated movie.