Review of Maleficent (2014) by Sarah L — 15 Jul 2015

Entertaining, and great CG/special effects, but the end kind of felt like a repeat of Frozen. It tries to make King Stephen into the villain, but I ended up feeling more sorry for him than for anyone else. Spoiler alert.

First off, I actually think cutting off her wings was the right thing to do. Honestly, if you think about it, all of the king's subjects were on a mad hunt to kill Maleficient, right? Without Stephen's intervention, by the end of it either Maleficient would have been dead or all of the king's potential "heirs" would have been dead. By cutting off her wings and using them to convince the king that she was already dead, he effectively put an end to the bloodshed before it even began. He minimized the casualties to just one pair of wings, and even then he didn't destroy them, either, just separated them from their owner. Honestly, do you think he could have picked a better body part? Like a hand, or a foot? Or a finger? Any of those might have made life even harder for her, and wouldn't have been as compelling as the wings for evidence of her demise. In addition to all that, elevating himself to the position of king allows him the power and influence to end the war against the Moors, therefore saving even more lives, and potentially even fostering a peaceful relationship between the two kingdoms due to his love for Maleficient (which obviously he did love her, otherwise he wouldn't have had any trouble killing her). Didn't the humans stop bothering them until Maleficient decided to come and curse Stephen's first daughter out of revenge? It's no wonder he went insane! This movie is trying to get you to sympathize with Maleficient and demonize Stephen but it really fails pretty hard in that regard.