Maleficient: Mistress of Evil

At the end of the surprise 2014 blockbuster, the scheming fairy of the magical

Moors forest accepted her maternal role over newly appointed queen Aurora

(Elle Fanning), whose bland romantic interest Prince Phillip (Harris Dickinson)

finally proposes to her as the new movie opens five years down the line.

Princess Aurora gets engaged to Prince Phillip and her godmother/guardian

Maleficent (Angelina Jolie) begrudgingly agrees to support this union of love.

When the two arrive at Queen Ingrith’s (Michelle Pfeiffer) fabulous castle for a

formal dinner to mark the imminent wedding between Aurora and Prince Philip

(the queen’s son), Maleficent seems distinctly ill at ease; she’s socially awkward,

quite incapable of small talk and understandably displeased by the queen’s announcement that, henceforth, “I consider Aurora my own.”

But Prince Phillip's mother, Queen Ingrith has plans of her own based on racism

and murder. Other than Jolie’s grandeur, and a bit of Fanning’s freshness, the movie’s got

nothing. The movie’s simplistic story also doesn’t allow for very many other

characters to develop beyond a one-sentence description.

The movie touches upon the ideas of the impact of intolerance towards those

different from us can have on our own selves while encouraging teamwork and

what can be the merits of rediscovery for a person? What pulls down the charm

of the movie is the seemingly unending battle sequence between humans and

Dark Faes.

It does give a feeling of the 2009 movie Avatar but does not bring anything new

to the table. It made the sequence feel like a rerun and gave the impression that the filmmakers ran out of ideas on how they can add more depth to the

characters.

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