(USA, 97 min.)
Dir. Writ. Linda Woolverton
Starring: Angelina Jolie, Elle Fanning,
Sharlto Copley, Sam Riley, Lesley Manville, Imelda Staunton, Juno Temple,
Brenton Thwaites.
Angelina Jolie retains her title as the reigning Queen of
Badassdom with Maleficent. The Oscar
winning bad-girl-turned-Supermommy assembles many of the facets of star
persona, plus some extravagantly accentuated cheekbones, and delivers a
deliciously malevolent Maleficent who is both hero and villain alike. The film
somewhat disappoints overall, but Jolie’s inspired incarnation on the beloved Disney
baddie ensures that Maleficent at
least lives up to some of the expectations.
Maleficent marks another entry in a string VFX re-imaginations of childhood favourites. The film easily sits a step above the epic bastardization of Oz: The Great and Powerful, which turns classic witches into cackling bitches, but it struggles to meet the modestly placed bar of Snow White and the Huntsman, which does the evil-queen-and-princess thing somewhat better. Maleficent is undoubtedly an inspired, if wildly uneven, revisionist take on the classic fairy tale of Sleeping Beauty. Maleficent has moments of greatness—mostly whenever the camera fixes upon Angelina Jolie—and it might have hit the same height overall if it were only a few shades darker.
The problem, essentially, is that director Robert Stromberg
seems unsure what kind of experience he wants Maleficent to be. The film is part kiddie-Disney flick and part
Gothic nightmare, and neither element really jives with the other. Stromberg, a
two-time Oscar-winning visual effects wizard and art director (he won Academy
Awards in the latter category for Alice
and Wonderland and Avatar), has
the talent to ensure that every frame of Maleficent
is a visually astounding feat, but he doesn’t grasp the tonal inconsistencies
that arise whilst injecting a potpourri of visual effects into a film.
The realization of Maleficent, for one, is a perfect
marriage of newfangled VFX and old school wizardry. Her wings alone are
impressive visuals that support Jolie’s commanding poise and presence, and they
afford Maleficent an eerie gargoyle vibe in this fairyland re-imagining until
Maleficent’s human love interest, Stefan (Sharlto Copley), clips her wings in
cruel trick. It’s a testament to Jolie’s performance, then, than Maleficent is
twice as intimidating when she’s robbed of her wings.
Likewise, all the
visuals that complement the dark side of Maleficent, such as the hypnotic green
mist that arises while she conjures her powers or the anamorphic tricks with
her crow/manservant Diaval (Sam Riley), make for a spellbinding bigscreen
experience. (Maleficent looks
perfectly grand in 2D, so there is no need to splurge on 3D glasses.) The
striking cinematography by Dean Semler provides an evocative play and light and
dark that makes the sprightly GCI visuals almost counterintuitive. (The
sequence of Maleficent riding to the castle as the curse reaches its climax,
for example, is a visually dazzling sequence.) The costumes by Anna B. Sheppard
are a brilliant assemblage of fur, skin, and bones that air tailored perfectly
to Jolie’s intimidating stature. (She rocks the horns and headdress as if they’re
a natural extension of her body.) Maleficent
finds power in the dark envisioning of the beguiling baddie, but,
unfortunately, the direction of the film is equal parts night and day.
For every brilliant gothic element in Maleficent’s visual design, a chorus of cuddly Disney characters
throws the tale back into Storybookland. Silly, ugly troll things pop up and
act cute while some fluffy creatures push Maleficent
towards “Happy Working Song” territory. The fairies played by Juno Temple and
Mike Leigh vets Lesley Manville and Imelda Staunton, on the other hand, offer
impressive feats of innovative effects by morphing the familiar actresses into
pixie-sized play toys. All this CGI cutesiness provides some comic relief for
the kids in the audience after all the scary bits with Maleficent, but nothing
quite ruins the experience of watching a dark fantasy film like the laughter of
a child.
Perhaps the overall innocence of Maleficent is inevitable given the circumstances of the its
production, but Maleficent can’t
shake the sugarcoating of the Disney brand. The same problem hinders the revisit
to Mary Poppins in Saving Mr. Banks and ultimately leaves
audiences wondering the purpose in returning to a classic story if the original
vision maintains its authority. Every time Maleficent
lets the kids come up for air, it inevitably deflates the thrill of seeing Sleeping Beauty get a full-blooded
reimagining.
Maleficent provides the context for Maleficent’s wickedness before giving a full redo of the Sleeping Beauty tale, and the fable of Stefan betraying Maleficent makes her both a character worthy of sympathy and a woman who refuses to be a victim to self-serving men. The scene in which Stefan betrays Maleficent itself has startling implications since he violates her after gaining her trust and slipping something into her drink. The simple fact that Maleficent is a Disney film, however, never really lets the film expand upon the treatment of Maleficent as a metaphor for rape culture, since it cuts to woodland animals instead of developing the thought, but the subtext is plainly there in this one crucial scene of exposition. Copley’s wooden performance, which descends to Rufus Sewell-grade stiffness, also ensures that Maleficent’s villainy is outmatched by a greater innate evil that lies in predatory men.
Some viewers might therefore interpret the spell Maleficent
casts on Stefan’s daughter Aurora as just another case of “Hell hath no fury
like a woman scorned,” but the journey on which Jolie takes Maleficent sees the
character shed her vengeful skin. Maleficent earns her wings by taking a fuller,
more compassionate perspective that uses her powers to better others rather
than simply to advance her own gain. It all happens as she watches over Aurora
(who grows up in a range of actresses from Jolie’s own daughter, Vivienne, and
finally as Elle Fanning) and recognizes that she herself strips a young girl of
her agency by evoking the curse.
Maleficent finds
its own kind of happily-ever-after in the end as the film rejects conventional
fairy tale closure, yet offers an unmistakable whiff of Disney ideology as
Maleficent evolves from malevolent to matronly. The arc, however, has a
bittersweet taste since Jolie herself carries Maleficent as a wickedly
entrancing character even after she wanders back from the dark side. It might
not entirely be the Maleficent one
hoped for, but Jolie’s Maleficent sure is.
Rating: ★★★½ (out of ★★★★★)
Maleficent is now in theatres from Walt Disney Pictures.
