Its raison d'etre is nothing that would require such a level of personal investment and initiative; that might've at least resulted in a movie you could feasibly gauge as having been made for a reason other than the WDC's primus motor these days: cold, hard cash.
Maleficent is easily a top-tier iconic villain and she probably brings in the merch money, so why not write a character-derailing piece of fanfiction that makes everyone else look an utter titmongrel, and watch the Hot Topic scene kids pour in? Some would lack the iconoclastic gumption and integrity to even consider it, but not the soulless automatons presiding over the WDC Department of Intellectual Property Autocannibalism.
Giving the role to Jolie, who has never managed to convincingly portray a genuinely sympathetic character, reeks of "Instant Maleficent, Just Add Cheekbones" casting. Now, her as an evil, irredeemable Mistress of All Evil? Now that's believable, even if I would be remiss to call it "acting" on Jolie's part.
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An insult to the 1959 classic
I find myself scratching my head pondering the thought-process behind this movie. It's stated to be a retelling of Sleeping Beauty, told from the villain's perspective, but even then, I can't help but wonder why? What was the point of attaching itself to the 1959 film?From watching this film, the only conclusion I can think of was to insult it.
The characters in the film are bastardized versions of their original incarnations; the three fairies are degraded into incompetent imbeciles who easily could've gotten Aurora killed through their negligence; King Stefan is portrayed as a psychotic tyrant who kicks off Maleficent's Start of Darkness; and Prince Philip, one of the more proactive Disney Princes of his era, exists solely as a Red Herring who is otherwise irrelevant to the plot. The film tries to put a spin on the concept of evil by attempting to make it's title character more complex and delve into her character, but it fails as the film can only do this by turning the King into a one-dimensional villain in her stead.
The film tries to turn Maleficent into something she's not by turning her into an Anti-Hero who redeems herself, but it simply does a disservice to her character. It wasn't necessary to change the character so drastically to the point of being unrecognizable; if they wanted to tell a story of a character who starts down a dark path but redeems herself through The Power of Love, then they should've just made her a different character entirely, as she has virtually nothing in common with the original.
While some might say I should judge the film on its own terms, the fact that the film relies on you knowing about the original tale makes comparing it to the original inevitable. And even judging it on its own terms, the film can't stand strong enough; it's cliched, predictable, the characters are annoying (especially the fairies), and it simply sucks as a "retelling".
The film tried to make the title character more complex, but all it ended up doing was making the other characters one-dimensional, which isn't an improvement in my eyes.