Magnificent (But...)

Alright, moviegoers – get ready to forget just about everything you remember about the Sleeping Beauty fairy tale, especially about its Mistress of Evil, for Angelina Jolie’s latest star vehicle, Maleficent, is out and ready to retell the classic tale.

How trendy!

Y’ see, Maleficent is simply not as wicked as you’ve always thought she might be. She just...has had a bit of a PR problem.

The true story new perspective that this live-action Disney offers, as a sort of companion piece to the studio’s 1959 animated film, casts Jolie’s Maleficent as a most-misunderstood character with a deep sadness, rather than a dark darkness.

Cetainly, Maleficent still is an imposing figure, and an ever so lithe one given that the Girl, Interrupted Oscar winner’s playing her. Her commanding horns are still there, and she has these ominously high, sharp cheekbones, but she’s still just a fairy that, we learn, takes a turn to the dark side, alright – but it’s a change that was provoked by this beef that she has with the man who became King Stefan (Sharlto Copley).

This is a man she met when he was a boy (a farmer’s son with something to prove) and she was a young, earthy fairy. The two became quite close all those years ago, with Stefan routinely visiting his new winged BFF in the fantastical moors that she was destined to protect fiercely, yet benevolently had he not broken her heart – and clipped her wings – in the name of his recklessly unchecked ambition.

And, yes, she still casts a curse on Princess Aurora (Elle Fanning, who plays the innocent royal with an almost-permanent smile that is full of wonderment; the effect is irresistibly whimsical but also, well...one note). But like, it’s just to spite her father, who betrayed her friendship and her love so horribly.

Seriously, can you blame her?

Maleficent sure doesn’t. And by giving the character a full arc, in which La Jolie relishes (especially when she is being quietly menacing), the movie transcends what we already know. It goes beyond spinning a yarn about a meanie opposing a goodie and her quest for true love (It Boy Brenton Thwaites pops in as Prince Phillip), and that’s all good and dandy, particularly in 2014. The lessons are meatier now.

If you think about it (something that I should think Jolie probably did more in theory than in actuality), this seemingly innocuous summer offering could be interpreted as a commentary on xenophobia and mysogyiny (the male king involved in the action has had a traditional animosity toward his neighboring lady-fairies...and what Stefan does to our anti-heroine to ascend to power is tantamount to date rape). But it all plays out as a mere reversal of roles that only asks that we consider that the bad we thought we knew could actually be justifiably pissed, and that we reconsider our sympathy for a good that could be less so than we remember.

Ultimately, to do this in anything resembling the state awe of Disney’s yore, I wish the production weren’t so by-the-numbers blockbuster-y.

Y’ know: sweeping shot upon sweeping shot of CGId landscapes. They take away much too much from Jolie, Maleficent’s most magnificent effect.

And that – on top of squandered opportunity for layer peeling – is just not cool.

My Rating **1/2

Photo: EverythingMouse.com.