The Movie Review: Maleficent
I went to see Maleficent, finally, with my friend, Zsófi, and I must say, I was pleasantly surprised.
I was skeptic about the movie when I sat down all cozy in the cinema, I thought it would be just another Disney movie with a romantic ending and a lot of focus on effects and capturing the world it plays in, but I was wrong, thankfully.
The movie is in 3D, which was already giving me a bit of anxiety. This sounds ridiculous, I know, but hey, there are some things one needs to take into consideration with 3D movies. For one, I already have glasses and no matter how large the screen is, I still feel woozy if I don’t wear them. So, I need to put the 3D glasses over mine which is pretty bad. It’s not that I look bad or whatever, it’s simply the fact that the double amount of glasses press my nose a little too hard and it gives me headaches, also, it’s uncomfortable.
Well, with all that irrelevant complaining ahead of me, I was pretty much ready to suffer through one and a half hours. Well, tell you what, I haven’t even noticed the glasses, they didn’t bother me at all.
The movie was surprisingly great for my tastes. Disney rewrote the well-known story of Sleeping Beauty and made it into this lovely story about the original villain. And that was just lovely.
The well-known story does not explain why exactly did Maleficent curse Aurora or why she hated the kingdom. The movie reveals a beautiful backstory which I enjoyed thoroughly.
Maleficent lives in a place called The Moors where there is no kingdom, the magical creatures live there in peace. On the other side there is the kingdom, where the king is trying hard to take over the Moors simply because he is afraid of the magical powers.
Maleficent becomes good friends with a human boy in her childhood, slowly falling in love with him. By her 16th birthday Stefan, the peasant boy gives her a gift, true love’s kiss and Maleficent really believes him. She doesn’t understand man’s craving for power, or their greed, so she is surprised when Stefan leaves, never coming back to see her again.
Maleficent grows up to be a powerful fairy, so she becomes the protector of the magical world, but the king still wants to conquer the peaceful place. Stefan comes back one night to warn Maleficent about the dangers, but his greed takes over. In order to please the king, he cuts off Maleficent’s wings and takes them to the dying king who makes him king.
Hurt and shamed, Maleficent decides to take her revenge, so she finds herself a servant, a crow called Diaval who becomes her wings. She has the ability to turn him into whatever creature she prefers, and so she does, using the crow to spy on the king.
Diaval comes back one day to announce that King Stefan has a daughter and the baptizing ceremony will take place soon, so she decides to go and curses Aurora with the well-known curse from the story: she will sting her finger and fall into an eternal sleep, only waking up when she experiences true love’s kiss.
Maleficent is not entirely cold-hearted as we have already learned. She watches over Aurora through her childhood, even though she cursed her and should be hating her. The three little fairies do a terrible job raising her, so she helps them out, without them knowing about her presence. Aurora finds out though, she notices Maleficent’s shadow following her around wherever she goes, making her believe that she is her fairy godmother.
Maleficent shows Aurora the Moors, becomes good friends with her and develops a nurturing feeling of love towards the princess, she tries to remove her terrible curse, but she isn’t capable of doing that: there may be no power to remove the curse. So, Maleficent decides to take care of Aurora and keep her safe, but, of course, that isn’t as easy.
I will not reveal the rest of the movie, I’ve already given out a lot of spoilers. But I will tell you why I enjoyed it so much:
The twist on the story is lovely, Maleficent’s character is dark and reserved, mysterious, but still a positive character. She is loveable, she does not just lurk around and plan evil like a maniac. Her character is very endearing and her humour is quite sweet, she pranks the three little fairies and makes fun of Diaval in a cute way. Angelina Jolie is a perfect cast for this role, she reminds me quite a lot of the original character in the first Disney movie. Her acting is exquisite, of course and her whole being seems to match Maleficent’s. Her beauty matched with the badassness we’re already used to with Jolie is depicted perfectly and my gosh, the winged scenes look amazing. The movie doesn’t focus only on the effects like in the case of Alice in Wonderland, the story is great, so I didn’t feel like I was there to see the splendor of some director who experimented with different techniques to create a big bang. So, I would definitely recommend it to anyone! It is a children’s tale, but I don’t think it’s meant exactly for children, it is not too scary but I would not bring too young kids with me to see it.
