Maleficent

As the sum of all its parts, Maleficent is a downright fun film.

Angelina Jolie is good in the film, and I do think kids will dig this movie.

It's a splendid-looking film. The effects are striking throughout, whether they are dramatic battle confrontations between humans and the forces of the natural world, or small moments of delicate detail.

Maleficent makes two fatal mistakes, the first being a problem of narrative.

Angelina Jolie is unimpeachably well cast as the hitherto evil - now merely misunderstood - sorceress who, outraged by patriarchal abuse, does what she does to the region's fairest princess.

Undoubtedly, Jolie's performance will be touted as elegantly evil, but it's Elle Fanning's effervescence as Aurora that really makes this film glow.

Even if Maleficent has its faults, you can experience this one and get some separation from the film from which it takes its inspiration.



It is a righteous revenge film, but with a feminist twist and a redemptive journey.

By the end, one cannot help but wish that Disney had left Maleficent a fascinating villain instead of a dull protagonist.

This isn't Sleeping Beauty as seen through the eyes of the wickedest of Disney villains. Instead, it's a Mouse House live-action revisionist fairy tale that inexplicably transforms the malevolent Maleficent into a misunderstood anti-hero.