Maleficent: Mistress of Evil

Maleficent: Mistress of Evil

Starring Angelina Jolie, Elle Fanning, Harris Dickinson, Michelle Pfeiffer

Directed by Joachim Ronning

The Story:
Ever since Maleficent (Angelina Jolie) reversed the curse she placed on young Aurora (Elle Fanning), the two have become surrogate mother-and-daughter, with Aurora serving as the Queen of the Moors while Maleficent is its protector.  Although she turned into a hero, Maleficent is still regarded as a villain in the human world, but this doesn't stop Prince Philip (Harris Dickinson) from proposing to Aurora, and hopes to bring both the land of humans and land of fairies together for good.

Maleficent is angered by this union because she still has a mistrust of humans, while Philip's parents seem overjoyed at the thought - especially his father, King John (Robert Lindsay), who also desires peace between the two worlds.  Philip's mother, Ingrith (Michelle Pfeiffer), however, wishes to eradicate the fairy world and sets a trap for Maleficent that separates her from Aurora and begins a war between the two species that could spell doom for Maleficent's home.

The Synopsis:
Disney has been getting a lot of flack for turning their beloved animated classics into live-action spectacles, mostly because they tend to either change very little, or change a whole lot - thereby making no one truly happy.  When it comes to the "Sleeping Beauty" story, however, Disney decided to take a different turn and tells a whole new story through the eyes of the original villains Maleficent, turning her from a stereotypical bad guy for the sake of being bad into a reluctant antihero who sees the error of her ways and turns things around for the good.  That's what made "Maleficent" so good, and to the surprise of pretty much everyone, "Mistress of Evil" followed with very little fan-fair - probably because the sequel seemed unnecessary, and the end result is a film that, while maintaining a quaint fairytale-like charm, also seemed to be a "Game of Thrones" episode (and one from the last season at that).

In the five years since Maleficent took Aurora in as her own, Aurora has now become the queen of the fairies in the Moors, while Maleficent serves as its guardian, protecting it from outside forces.  Yet the relationship between Aurora and Prince Philip continued, resulting in him asking her for marriage, which angers Maleficent due to her not trusting humans.  Yet she chooses to side with Aurora and even attends a dinner at the palace thrown by Philip's parents, resulting in an evil plan hatched by Philip's mother Queen Ingrith to come to fruition, where Maleficent is seen as the villain and turns surrogate mother against daughter.

Maleficent flees back to the Moors where she finds more of her kind that have been forced underground due to humans hunting them, and both sides prepare for war, while Aurora and Philip seem blissfully unaware of the coming carnage as they prepare for their nuptials.  Basically this is the ultimate mother-in-law battle between Jolie's Maleficent and Pfeiffer's Ingrith, with everyone else thrown in for good measure.

Yet, surprisingly, Maleficent isn't in the film that much, especially since it has her name in the title - but instead it focuses more on Ingrith, Aurora, and Philip's stories, as well as those of the forgotten creatures and even the head of the guard, which is to the film's detriment.  The relationship between Maleficent and Aurora is intriguing, magical, and something we haven't seen in any fairy tale movie before, and the best moments of this film is when the two are sharing screen time together, which doesn't happen often.  The dinner scene itself is the highlight, as the tensions mount and we see how the characters interact with one another, wondering how no one could notice Ingrith's obvious nasty nature - not giving anything away, but it truly is a masterclass performance by both Angelina Jolie and Michelle Pfeiffer, and puts all other future mothers-in-law dinners to shame.

In order to appeal to a winder audience, it seems that the director wanted to infuse more than just a lovey-dovey wedding into the festivities, and unleashes a monstrous final act reminiscent of a "Game of Thrones" battle, which hopefully will draw in young men who want to see some action instead of romance.  It is a great spectacle and grand battle (especially when Maleficent enters the fray), so I can't say much negative about it - and honestly there's not a whole lot of really negative things I can say about the film overall, but rather the wasted opportunity of what it could've been.

Angelina Jolie shines as Maleficent, looking as radiant as ever, and dominates the screen with her sheer presence.  Michelle Pfeiffer seems to relish in the bad guy role (even if her character is thinly written to play to the modern fears of a leader who seeks out genocide just for the thrill of it), and leads with an ice-cold demeanor you'd expect from the classic Maleficent, beautifully switching roles here.  It's obviously a film about these two powerful women, as the other characters fall by the wayside and make completely stupid decisions for the sake of the story.  Elle Fanning's Aurora is very quick to dismiss the surrogate mother who's watched over her for the last five years at the drop of a hat, then spends the rest of the film literally running from one end of the screen to another as she desperately tries to catch up with her own story.  Harris Dickinson (who unfortunately took the role from Brenton Thwaits) is even worse as Prince Philip, who literally staggers through all his scenes like he's one scene behind, and never fully catches up - he looks like a deer caught in the headlights, and is almost laughable in the progress.  Then there's Maleficent's fellow winged creatures, played by Chiwetel Ejiofor and Ed Skrein, who basically serve as the good and bad angels on Maleficent's shoulders.  One wants peace at all costs (Ejiofor), while the other is ready to totally end the human race (Skrein), and you can guess which one eventually wins out.

The CGI is once again dominating, and thankfully works well with the events taking place in the film, mixed with the practical effects of Jolie's beautiful costume design that really establishes itself as unique and beautiful.  The set designs are top-notch - from the lavish castle designs to the lovely moors, there's not a moment that you're not totally caught up in the story.  Sadly, the story itself is slowed by tedious melodrama and bickering, and not enough of what made the first one pure magic - Maleficent herself.

The Summary:
Angelina Jolie again shines as Maleficent, even if her screen time is cut short due to other characters having their due, and providing a story that's balanced between a wedding and a war that escalates both to an exciting conclusion - even though the entire thing isn't really necessary.

The Score: A-