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Plot |
This movie takes a different look at Maleficent (Isobelle Molloy) and starts the story long before there is any malice in her heart. When the tale begins she is just one of many fairies that live in her magical land. She spends most days flying around and mending broken branches. Then one day she meets a boy named Stefan who has ventured into her woods and has taken something that didn’t belong to him. Maleficent takes the object back and returns it. Stefan finds her peculiar, yet spends a great deal of time with her until one day he just stopped coming to see her at all. When Stefan (Sharlto Copley) comes back to Maleficent (Angelina Jolie) as a man he is there under false pretenses. Stefan had been promised the kingship if he would defeat Maleficent who has become a powerful guardian of her lands, but at the moment of truth he cannot strike her down so he removes her wings instead and returns to his kingdom with his prize. Years later Stefan marries and has a daughter. It is at this moment that Maleficent swoops down on them with a vengeance. |
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Character Development |
Because there are so many time jumps it really is not fair to fault the acting for not showing much character development. First you have Maleficent and Stefan when they are teenagers and then a scene later they are 20 years older. For Aurora we have 3 people playing her. There are a few developments between Maleficent and Stefan and that speak volumes to who they truly are, but the story was not told in manner that would reach any deeper. Piggybacking on top of performances can only get you so far. Because after you have taken that 20 year jump in time it is not that much longer before there is another 16. People on screen might show emotions, only it isn’t entirely clear how they got them. |
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Acting |
Most of the acting was well done, though this wasn’t really a movie for great acting; much of the delights in this film are from the spectacle of witchcraft known as special effects. The pages of the script just gobbled down this brew wantonly. Looking the part for the actor was far greater of importance than what was being said. There aren’t any real face-to-face conversations with any to characters. At one point in the film Angelina Jolie’s character spells a crow into a man and then directs him about doing her bidding. That is how everyone here goes about their business, directed, preforming a function, just another cog in the machine. Nothing had to be explained. Things happened because they must happen. It was willed that way after all. There is no second guessing it. |
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Overview |
Right from the opening title I knew things were set up to be different and I was only surprised to find how different the story would end up being. Great pains were given to find a fresh perspective on this very old story and I believe Disney has done it. I admit there were times that I thought the direction was all wrong, that poetic license has been taken too far, but I have seen worst results. To say anymore would give too much away. Fear not, because the elements of a fairy tale are here, they have just been rearranged very differently. I didn’t see this one coming. |
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