Movie Review: Maleficent

Maleficent

directed by Robert Stromberg;
screenplay by Linda Woolverton;
starring Angelina Jolie (Maleficent) and Elle Fanning (Aurora)
view full cast and crew →

movie website | IMDb

A beautiful, pure-hearted young woman, Maleficent has an idyllic life growing up in a peaceable forest kingdom, until one day when an invading army threatens the harmony of the land. Maleficent rises to be the land’s fiercest protector, but she ultimately suffers a ruthless betrayal – an act that begins to turn her pure heart to stone. Bent on revenge, Maleficent faces a battle with the invading king’s successor and, as a result, places a curse upon his newborn infant Aurora. As the child grows, Maleficent realizes that Aurora holds the key to peace in the kingdom – and perhaps to Maleficent’s true happiness as well.

–

This time around, Dyan and I watched this one separately, so we weren’t able to discuss much during the movie. In order to get our thoughts together, this one’ll be a joint review!

*There might be some spoilers.

(source)

Aimee: The first thing that drew me into the movie was Angelina Jolie’s amazing portrayal of Maleficent’s character. She was poised, graceful and just oozed power. She is definitely someone I wouldn’t want to cross. Throughout the whole movie, I was whispering weird things like, “She’s soooooo badass,” to my brother!

Dyan: The way Jolie connected with her character was captivating. She has this talent of adapting herself to the role, instead of adapting the role to herself. I was rendered speechless during the movie, pulled into the world she created. (Which is quite rare, seeing as I’m very talkative during movies.)

Aimee: Exactly! I really liked Elle Fanning as Aurora as well. She nailed the naive, childish whimsy that all Disney princesses had. I wasn’t a huge fan of Sharlto Copley as Stefan, though. He did a good job with the bits where his character was insane, but I felt like his voice was a bit too high to sound like a king. Maybe it was supposed to be that way? I don’t know, but it really didn’t appeal to me.

Dyan: You’re right about Fanning’s acting skills. I honestly hated her character though. She was so naive and gullible! I mean, does Maleficent honestly looks like a fairy godmother? I also agree with you about Sharlto! During Stefan’s reappearance as an adult, I almost laughed out loud at how high pitched and quirky his voice was!

Aimee: HA! He kind of sounded like a little girl. As for Aurora thinking Maleficent’s a fairy godmother–well, I don’t think she really knows the difference (physically) of good and bad. She was brought up oddly, no?

Aimee: One thing you and I agreed on during our text discussion of the movie was how tacky and predictable (the main points. There were some minor things that I did not see coming) a lot of the things were. But it was the Disney kind of tacky that doesn’t really bother most watchers. And there are kids in the crowd, so.

Dyan: I see your point about the young audience, yes, but it couldn’t have hurt to include more plot twists!

(source)

Aimee: THE EFFECTS WERE SO, SO GOOD. The movie was visually very pleasing and I just adored being in this world. And the costumes–wow! I just felt like everything fit so well and tied up really nicely. Like everything belonged in THIS time period and in THIS world–just great!

Dyan: The effects were AWESOME. It was, graphic-wise, the best movie of 2014 so far. The creatures in the Moore look so life-like, Maleficent’s wings looked so real, and all the other visual effects were just so AWESOME.

**This part will probably contain spoilers! Watch out.

Aimee: You readers know that we’re pretty nitpicky when it comes to books and movies. My main pet peeve about the book was the three fairy godmothers. They were so, so irritating and they weren’t even trying to keep Aurora safe. Or if they did, they did a horrible job at it. I also hated how Disney butchered up their names. I can’t even remember them!

(source)

Dyan: I know, right! They were SO, SO STUPID. I wanted to rip their hair off! I can’t fathom why Stefan would entrust his only daughter to three incapable nitwits. Stefan was also a little shit! I had all these feels at first, because I’m a sucker for romances between best friends. Then he had to ruin it by being the little shit he was!

Aimee: I would say he’s a big shit, not a small shit. LOL, we sound weird. Anyway, I felt like he honestly had no purpose. Basically, he was just doing nothing and ordering people around! And when Aurora came back, he didn’t even seem happy to see her AFTER 16 YEARS. What the flying fuck?

Dyan: To add fuel to the fire, he had to hunt Maleficent down! I mean, he was the bad guy! He didn’t have the right to be angry at Maleficent! It was Maleficent that had the right to burn his face off! How dare he have the nerve to attack her??

Aimee: I say we STAB HIS EYEBALLS OUT!

3.5 skulls

Let’s discuss! Have you watched the movie? If you have, what did you think of it? If you haven’t, do you plan to and what are your expectations?