Review of Maleficent (2014) by Jazgalaxy — 30 May 2014

There is a lot to like in Maleficent. The problem is, taken as a whole, it's a series of interesting ideas shoehorned into a structure for a different story. This is the movie Jolie was born to play. Any second she is on screen as the villain from Sleeping Beauty, she is stealing the show. But the film goes out of it's way to remind you that she's not THAT character. She's an all together new Maleficent whose emotional twists and turns don't quite make sense and are directed largely by the fate of being beholden to a fairy tale. Maleficent, the film, stabs itself in the heart by saying "here's how the story REALLY happened", and then proceeds to tell a story not quite as great as the original. In doing so, it stabs Disney's Sleeping Beauty as well, which is kind of baffling.

In the end, this film earns a "see it" automatically because it is REFRESHINGLY short. Almost all modern movies are about an hour too long and maleficent refuses to drag it's story on for no real purpose. As a result, it's a fantastic length, never boring, and a fun and egging story that pulls you into the emotions of it's characters even if they don't hold together as well as your imagination would paint them.