Movie Review: Maleficent

I know that I wasn’t excited for this movie before I saw it (it made my “Least Anticipated” list), and sometimes it’s humbling to admit…that I’m right. Gotcha! It’s truly not good at all.

What Works: People are going to go into this for Angelina Jolie’s cheekbones, and I’m pleased to report that they are given plenty of room to breathe. None of the other actors really register, but Jolie has long since given up on really connecting with any other actor sharing a scene with her anyway. And that actually works to her advantage as a wicked witch locked into nursing her own sense of righteous vengeance…Of course, it works less when Maleficent (the character and the movie) starts turning all gooey…

What Doesn’t: They’ve taken one of Disney’s scariest villains and made them a white-washed heroine who actually saves Sleeping Beauty multiple times. This is advertised as a “Snow White and the Huntsman”-esque darker and more epic reboot, but the cartoon version of Sleeping Beauty was scarier than this film is. [Snow White and the Huntsman is also a better movie, just FYI.] The first third is okay—-those Del Toro-style spooky tree guards are great—-but the movie starts getting sillier and lazier around the midpoint, and never recovers.

Plus, and I’m not trying to be mean, but how in the hell does Sharlto Copley keep getting choice work in big movies? I know that white South Africans (who gobble up every twangy syllable of his distracting Afrikaners accent) think he’s the best thing since Brando, but this guy’s ultra-mannered performances just feel like a local theater actor who thinks he’s a method actor. If the guy in your local used car commercials ever thought he was Daniel Day-Lewis, the result would be something like Sharlto Copley. Copley and Jolie are supposed to be friends-turned more-turned enemies, but they get my vote as having the least chemistry of any couple in a movie this year.

What I Would Have Done Differently: “Maleficent” the movie fails, ironically, at the same thing Maleficent the character does: establishing relationships. You don’t believe that Copley’s Stefan has any real feelings for Maleficent early on or that she really feels much romance for him either. At the end, when the two are bitter enemies in a climactic battle, a better movie would have made you feel the shared history between them…as is, we forget they ever once knew each other intimately. And the reason I’ve barely mentioned the relationship between Sleeping Beauty and Maleficent is because the less said about that, the better.