Rating: 3/5

Three-Word Summary: Disney villain re-imagined

In the same spirit of Wicked, Maleficent re-tells the story of Sleeping Beauty, but from the perspective of the antagonist. It’s also interesting because the film was produced by Disney, who helped make the fairy tale famous with their 1959 animated classic.

The movie features Angelina Jolie as Maleficent, a fairy who is betrayed by an ambitious Stephan on his way to becoming king. Which helps to explain why Maleficent would curse his daughter, Princess Aurora, as she did in the original cartoon.

So this revisionist version of the story helps to give depth to the original by showing the motivation behind the evil. And in so doing, makes us question whether the so-called evil is understandable and even justified.

Of course, this version of the story has a different kind of happy ending and completely shifts our sympathies.

It’s strength lay in its ability to make us feel different about the same characters we already know: the good fairies are argumentative and aloof; Princess Aurora is naive and borderline annoying; Prince Philip is a lost pawn; and King Stephan is an unhinged sociopath.

My biggest criticism of the movie is that it did too much telling and not enough showing, which I suppose is more forgivable with a younger target audience. The narrative voice (which I didn’t see the necessity for) helped the plot gloss over several crucial moments, especially in the development of the relation between Maleficent and Stephan.

In the end, the movie accomplished what it set out to do: cause us to rethink a classic story. But it failed to follow through in a few important areas and narrowly missed out on being better than average. It was good, but it could have been great if not for a few noticeable plot holes.