It's hard to review Disney's Maleficent without mentioning that the screening I went to ended with a hearty applause. The reason I feel it's necessary to point this out is because despite its clear flaws, this film is an absolute crowd pleaser. The audience bought into the world that the film was selling.
The first half of the film was essentially a visual treat. Everything from the effects to the costumes to the makeup was done with such a vivid vision that the film's world could be inhabited by any story. However, the problems quickly began. The first half of the film played out as a prologue, detailing the story preceding Sleeping Beauty and humanizing the fairy known as Maleficent. Quick fire scenes underscored with soaring and menacing music and connected by a seemingly omniscient narration allowed the film to move at a break neck pace, however the actual dialogue suffered because of it. While we were spared the cringeworthy expositional dialogue, we were instead tortured with cliched forced and insincere conversation.
However, it is always made up for in visuals. A battle scene played out between humans and beings of another world offered such gorgeous cinematography and effects, but so much of the mood is in thanks to Angelina Jolie's performance. The film was dark by Disney standards, but there was still a lot of predictability and inevitable lessons that destroyed the true darkness that could have encapsulated the movie. What Jolie was able to do was utilize the Maleficent character as the foundation for the brutal honesty that a usual PG-13 film lacks. The character of Maleficent is a complicated one. Throughout the entire movie she never identified as a hero or villain, she was a true character that changed and was as selfish as she was selfless. Jolie was able to portray the change with an elegance that could have been lost on a lesser actress. Further than that, she was able to emote with such veracity that the pain transcended the screen, but also rule the kingdom with an icy stare that struck fear into our hearts like in the animated version.
Despite her magnificent performance that will surely rank among her best, the second half of the film, which acted as a retelling of the classic Sleeping Beauty tale was clunky at best. The characters surrounding Maleficent became caricatures as if they were pulled directly from a cartoon. It caused the darkness that was built up in the first half to come crumbling down and what we were left with was just another heartwarming Disney movie.
All flaws aside, Maleficent was a step in the right direction for Disney. The studio has been looking to step out of their usual mold of fanciful films that taught you a lighthearted lesson about life that you already knew. Saving Mr. Banks was their first attempt to break that mold and although it failed, it signaled a change. Maleficent was not a great movie by any means, but the pure craft involved was enough to keep you entertained for 90 or so minutes. I think that the film is an early contender for Oscars for Visual Effects and maybe Production Design and Costume Design. What kept you thinking was that Disney was able to put out a character with such complexity as Maleficent. While the movie surrounding may have been the usual fare, I am excited to see them adding, however small, a little darkness in their movies.
Hey, I'm Karl, founder and film critic at Smash Cut. I started Smash Cut in 2014 to share my love of movies and give a perspective I haven't yet seen represented. I'm also an editor at The New York Times, a Rotten Tomatoes-approved critic, and a member of the Online Film Critics Society.