Looking at: Maleficent

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I don't think I'm the right audience for this movie. That's my justification for why I was so bored during Maleficent. It's not necessarily a bad movie, I just didn't like it all that much. There are things about it that worked, but again, I don't think I'm the right audience.

Sleepless Beauty

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Angelina Jolie's Maleficent, doing what she does best

The set up for Maleficent is a re-telling of the classic Sleeping Beauty, but from the other side. Our "hero" is the titular character of Maleficent, played by Angelina Jolie. Maleficent is some sort of hybrid fairy-human-goat creature that lives in a fantasy forest at war with the neighboring human kingdom. One day a human named Stefan is found in the forest, and after Maleficent saves his life the two fall in love, for some reason. The human grows up to become Sharlto Copley, and a complete asshat. After the ailing king offers his kingdom to the man that kills Maleficent, Stefan uses his friendship to drug and steal Maleficent's wings. She gets pissed, curses his daughter, and starts just generally effing shit up left right and center.

The king decides to send his daughter away to live in safety with three fairies (Lesley Manville, Juno Temple, and Imelda Staunton) while he tries to kill Maleficent. This plan sucks, as she quickly figures out where the girl is and begins toying with her and the fairies, while curiously saving the girls life once or twice. Eventually the girl nears her sweet sixteenth, the date that her curse kicks in, and this is where the bulk of the movie takes place.

See, while observing the girl, Maleficent accidentally begins to love the girl and decides that the curse needs to be nullified. Of course, magic is a fickle bitch, so she needs to somehow find "true love's kiss" and save the girl she cursed.

It's an interesting idea, centering the main plot like this, and the idea of more then just romantic love in a Disney movie. I can honestly say I think this is the first time the princess in a fantasy story was saved by purely platonic love. It's perhaps unfortunate that it's just kind of boring to watch play out, never mind just sort of stupid.

Disney and the Brothers Grimm have never really been on equal levels. Disney is fine with using the Grimm's plots, but never actually reading them. At least in the original Sleeping Beauty Disney got the character of Maleficent right. Maleficent is evil, there is no good to her. She's the villain of Sleeping Beauty, and is considered a villain in a number of other Disney properties, including but not limited to the Kingdom Heats franchise and a number of Disney produced cartoons. She's pure evil, from her name to the way she's dressed, and trying to turn her into a sympathetic hero just doesn't work that well.

Leather Skeletor and Jack White

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Maybe a younger, way less talented Antonio Banderas

It's hard to tell how good Angelina Jolie is in this film. When she's acting evil, she's FULL ON evil, and it's fun to watch. But when she's trying to act like a good guy, it's just kind of weird and boring. Make no mistake, there's an air of royalty to Jolie, and she wields it well, but when she's acting meek it's hard not to think of actresses that could've pulled it off better.  This is her first live action role in a long time, and the 39 year old is now mother of six kids. At the very least it's impressive she can still pull off a performance like this, but there's no doubt this is one of her weaker roles. 

The other female lead, is Elle Fanning as Princess Aurora, more commonly known as Sleeping Beauty. If there's one thing working in Fanning's favor in this film is that she's actually the age of her character in real life. She turns this into her character, really playing it like a teenage girl, which is unfortunate because teenage girls are lame. She's either way to happy, or way to sad, and there's no real midpoint with her character. More then anything she's just annoying and forgettable. I finished watching the movie only a few minutes ago, and I'm honestly struggling to remember anything she said or did that didn't annoy me.

Sharlto Copley shows up as King Stefen, and is insane. No matter what he does, it's constantly impressive how Copley's career has turned out considering he's not a trained actor. He seems to have fun with his role and brings the right amount of crazy to the mad king. He's one of the better characters in the film and watching him and Jolie go at it is enjoyable enough.

Then there's Sam Riley as Maleficent's transforming crow aide. I've never heard of this kid before, and looking at his IMDB page it's little surprise. He's just another young white kid we're supposed to keep an eye on, but until he does something actually impressive I've already forgotten his name. Put him in a Jack White bio-pic, since the pale bastard looks so much like the rock legend I legitimately thought it was Jack White for most of the movie, sans the drunken fist fights and strangely implied incest.

Disgustingly majestic

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Elle Fanning as scarred white fantasy girl in cloak #345

For a CGI heavy movie, it's unfortunate that the CG is so rocky. Some things look great, especially the fantasy creature that hang out in the woods. In particular is Maleficent's tree guardians, which look like something straight out of Dark Souls. But there is some really bad overlaying in certain scenes, and it's just hard to watch. Perhaps worst of all is the three fairies watching over the Princess, whose faces seem to move around independently of their actual heads. At best it looks like a low-budget version of the face scans from LA Noir.

The cinematography is standard fantasy fair, if you've seen any half decent fantasy film you've seen all of the camera shots. There's some good use of it to punctuate certain scenes, but it's all pretty part-and-parcel, with wide shots at twilight, zoom shots on evil people, and quick spins during revels. Perhaps best of all is the total lack of handi-cam, a feature far to missing in modern cinema.

I can't say the same for the lighting, with some scenes being way to dark to see. This isn't helped at all by the fantasy setting of the Fairy forest, a place that could only be more whimsical if there was a fairy and a unicorn having sex on a rainbow. It's hard to make out what's happening, and the main character being dressed in all black really doesn't help since she literally blends into the background occasionally.

That's really the biggest problem with the movie. Despite flipping the scrip on the subject matter, it's still comprised of things we've all seen before, often done better. Everything that comprises Maleficent is just pulled from other fantasy movies, and it struggles to find it's own place in a world with Game of Thrones, The Princess Bride, or The Lord of The Rings.

The Deeper Meaning

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Sharlto Copley is great as the mad king Stefan.

Of course, what the film is really about is rape. It's not even subtle about it either, this is a family friendly version of Rape Squad (yes, a real movie, no not what you think, yes super NSFW/NSFL). Maleficent is drugged by a close friend, who then take advantage of her, and no one punishes him. The whole conflict is between Maleficent and Stefen, and Aurora is just an innocent bystander caught in the fray.

This is really the movies one real saving grace, morbid though it may be. Not a lot of movies would choose to go this route, and even less released by Disney. I suspect the intended message will go right over a lot of this movies intended audience, but it's brave and I give it credit for that at least.

All in all, it's not a bad movie. Everything is just competent enough to kind of work, and it's take on a dark subject matter is just ballsey enough to earn it extra points. There's nothing really wrong with it, it's just kind of boring and I didn't really enjoy it all that much. Then again, I'm probably not the right audience for it.