Verdict:
When I was a young boy (hold on, I am going somewhere with this) I drew fan fiction of Batman. My rebellious nature and dislike of authority resulted in me imagining that the authoritarian Gotham police was evil and that Batman used his fancy toys to slaughter a bunch of them. I had issues… But had I ever brought my fresh take on Batman to the big screen, it would probably not have been very popular with the masses. I know, because I see Maleficent suffering from a similar issue, despite being a good film overall.
This film feels very forced at times, especially in the first half. Angelina Jolie knows her stuff and she is marvellous in all her overacting glory, but her character’s arch is so sudden and unnatural, and a lot of the dialogue given to her is so simple, that it seems like the fan who was writing this dark fan fic has not quite found the balance between the original material and his own vision.
The character of Maleficent in Disney’s animated film was designed from the start as an evil character. This film has decided to keep that design and also keep much of the dark original world design that surrounded Maleficent. So, when the creator tries to mess with the established design for the purpose of inserting his fan fiction, it just feels odd. It doesn’t visually fit.
On top of the contradicting visual design, Maleficent is simply known to the older generations as the cartoonishly evil…cartoon villain, because it was engraved into our minds from childhood, so seeing the concept meddled with is doubly as weird because of that.
After the initial bumpy start, though the flow of the movie does get better, but Maleficent does not ever rise above average.
There are plenty of pretty visuals, as most of the plot takes place in a fairy world, complete with mandatory different coloured lights shining in the dark as eye candy. Most of it is made up of CGI and we are now entering the age when CGI looks good enough even in an average movie. The thing is, we are also entering an age where we have seen so much colourful CGI that we are no longer impressed by it. We value good characters and good props more. All the CG gives it an aura of fakeness, but I will admit that it was nice to look at. As always, when so many CGI characters are used, it becomes weird to see real human faces. They should’ve gone all the way and made this an animation.
Shadows and silhouettes are used to effect, though I should point out that some of these effects are copied directly from the original Disney animation.
For a minor Disney cash-in fan fiction that is this movie, Angelina Jolie brings an impressive and mesmerising level of performance. When she is hurt, her pain is believable. When she is evil, her evil is playful, elegant and charismatic. Her accent and delivery bring a royal gravitas to her character. It is great that she occupies most of this movie, because the other characters are very average. None of them are terrible, but none of them are memorable either. My main enjoyment of this film resulted from the enjoyment that Angelina Jolie seemed to draw from the role. She comes off as deserving of a much better stage than this CGI fest has given her. It’s amazing that this is the same person who starred in that godawful Tom Raider.
If you need some movies to watch at a party, there is nothing wrong with picking this one. What I question is how many people will remember it a year from now.