Also checked out Maleficent: Mistress of Evil, the five-year-later sequel to the pretty good Disney live-action-but-flipped-on-its-head remake of Sleeping Beauty. That movie was pretty early in the Disney live action remake routine and, as such, actually tried to make a different movie (by making Maleficent the hero). This movie follows all the by-the-numbers remakes though, but since it’s a sequel, has the leeway to do whatever the hell it wants. And what it wants is… well… different from the source material but kind of the same as a lot of other big budget flicks.
So this picks up with Aurora (still played by Elle Fanning) as the (human) queen of the fairies when Prince Phillip sidles on up and proposes. She says yes but then has to break it to her godmother Maleficent (once again played by Angelina Jolie). She’s not pleased and that leads to an awkward Meet the Parents scene where the former evil force of evil has to put on a cloth to cover her horns and sit down with the future in-laws. Funny scene. But despite being the hero in the last movie, rumor and folklore is what it is and people are still suspicious of Maleficent. Things don’t go well and soon there’s war between the kingdom of humans fairies with the prince and princess trying to convince all the stupid adults (including the Queen played by Michelle Pfeiffer) to cut it out.
And… yeah… the story could go anywhere and it hovers around themes of peace and goodwill… and then has a great big sky battle / siege. Winged attackers vs. knights with catapults. It’s certainly big and certainly grand and they certainly spent a LOT of money… but I ultimately didn’t really care very much. I wasn’t bored… it’s just that there was a lot of good looking FX and money being spent on screen, I watched it, and I moved on. It was a lot of hubub… sound and fury signifying nothing.
Angelia Jolie continues to be perfect for the part… and adding Michelle Pfeiffer was good casting but the two didn’t have enough screen time. I can imagine an alternate script that let those two camp it up to great effect. Elle Fanning continues to have a pleasant smile and no character… which is perfect for the piece of wood playing the prince. A few other new characters show up and threaten to be interesting but never have enough screen time to build characters.
And that’s ultimately what I think about the movie. It’s far from the worst thing I’ve ever seen but, except for a few chuckles when Maleficent had to try to fit in (Angelina Jolie nails that), I really didn’t feel anything about anything. Nothing unique, nothing interesting, no attempts at anything but pat and trivial themes done before. Good for kids, surely, and that’s Disney at its most autopilot.
Score: 76