So I'm not going to harp on the quality of acting here, and I certainly don't blame the director for it this week, but it IS a Disney movie and some might say they picked the perfect actress to play Maleficent...it's just that Angelina Jolie doesn't really settle into the roll until the second half of the film, when she's truly a villainess, with or without a heart of gold. In the first half of the film, there are only two actors I liked, and one of them played a crow (Sam Riley) ;). The other was Imelda Staunton of Harry Potter fame - those two got all the good lines early on and they handled them well. Also, once the princess comes along, Elle Fanning is so one-dimensional that I think I prefer the acting range displayed by the animated version of Aurora.
Though this is supposed to be the origin story of Maleficent, we still don't know what happened to her parents and later when we are given an early reason for her initial hardening of the heart, it seems less than even a schoolgirl would fret over. We're supposed to see her grow into a young woman as beloved by her fellow woodland creatures as later Sleeping Beauty is to become, but Maleficent has no friends, so I don't think I was appropriately endeared to her for the following struggle. Later, when there is an epic battle between Maleficent and the King, I couldn't find it within myself to cheer for either of them because I still felt they were both in the wrong and both justified in their actions.
It's definitely a female power movie, with even the Prince (played by Brenton Thwaites of this summer's highly anticipated - by me - The Giver) relegated to just a few lines and tossed aside, which I can't say bothered me ;). However, the ultimate story of "love" triumphing over all, no matter how dysfunctional, left me with mixed emotions, though it was a story preferable to the original. The original Sleeping Beauty never captured my imagination as a child and seemed to make the least sense of all the stories available to little girls of my generation anyway. Maleficent herself was always more interesting, but I'm not sure this version made her any moreso.
Try 2012's Mirror Mirror (if you like musicals) with Julia Roberts and Lily Collins for a more upbeat and overall better film or even reach back to one of my all time favorites - 1985's Legend, starring Tom Cruise and Mia Sara. That one is just as dark, but more beautiful and Angelina Jolie's headdress is just a sad copy of Tim Curry's Darkness anyway. If it's any consolation, the 10 and 11 year olds in the car with me at the drive-in really liked it but thought it was too scary for PG - they were pondering the possibility of creating a new rating of PG-10 - girls after my own heart.
2.75 stars out of 5
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