A re-invention of the classic Sleeping Beauty, Disney’s new film Maleficent attempts to shed new light on the eponymous dark fairy,
and how the tale has been told wrong all these years. After her supposed true
love Stefan (Sharlto Copley) betrays her in exchange for the throne of the
kingdom, Maleficent (Angelina Jolie) is left wingless and heartbroken, vowing
revenge by planting a curse on his first-born daughter which only true loves
kiss can revoke.
The most notable feature of the film is that it has clearly
been made with the best of intentions: the film-makers have done their best to
try and re-invent the story for a new generation, but this is also its biggest
problem. The 1959 original was memorable, and for its few flaws it managed to
tell a coherent story with diverse characters and gorgeous animation, and Maleficent sadly has none of that. It
just cannot decide what it wants to be, whether it’s a dark origins story, the ‘other
side’ of the story, or a complete re-telling. It can’t even work out what tone
it wants to set, meandering between sickly colourful and darkly gothic from
scene to scene.
Where the film truly shines is Angelina Jolie, who throws
herself into the role and strikes a perfect balance between the malevolent
cackling of the original character and the mystified, aimlessly wandering
incarnation of the new story. Copley adds a level of grumbling malice as King
Stefan, and the three fairies (brought to life in a mixture of live action and
computerised motion-capture by Imelda Staunton, Juno temple and Lesley
Manville) come packed with a few laughs here or there, even if their scenes
descend mostly into leftover skits from The Three Stooges.
Other pieces of the film that work in its favour are,
ironically, the ones that directly reference or pay homage to the original,
from Maleficents’ first appearance during the christening or Aurora meeting the
prince for the first time. This care and attention sadly does not stretch to
the wondrous strings of ‘Once Upon a Dream’ which are held back until the end
credits and warbled rather drearily by Lana Del Rey. The climax, in its attempt
to bring something new to the story sadly wallows in the predictable and relies
heavily on CGI that any competent studio could have thrown together, a far cry
from the lavish colours of the original.
Feeling anti-climactic and undecided, Maleficent is not a terrible film, for there are certain pleasure
to be had within its 97-minute running time, but as a supposed re-invention of
a classic story it feels terribly mediocre, and that’s just not something you
expect from Disney. The magic is there, but its stifled beneath a film that
veers from interesting to boring, engagingly dark and cringe-inducingly twee.
2.5 Stars
