Maleficent: Mistress of Evil Review
PG: Intense sequences of fantasy action/violence and brief scary images
Runtime: 1 Hour and 58 Minutes
Production Companies: Roth Films, Walt Disney Pictures
Distributor: Walt Disney Motion Studios
Director: Joachim Rønning
Writer: Linda Woolverton, Noah Harpster, Micah Fitzerman-Blue
Cast: Angelina Jolie, Elle Fanning, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Sam Riley, Ed Skrein, Imelda Staunton, Juno Temple, Lesley Manville, Michelle Pfeiffer
Release Date: October 18, 2019
My relationship with Disney has been on the rocks lately. Most of their in-house Disney brand releases have been lazy and tiresome. Nearly everything off their catalog of this year has been a live-action remake and… well, I’ve hated all of them thus far. But hopefully, my red herring, my sliver of hope would be Maleficent: Mistress of Evil. I enjoyed the heck out of the previous movie and thought it was a smart and ambitious spin-off that had a good twist. This sequel, on the other hand, is a complete redaction of everything I loved about the first movie. Goddamn it Disney, you can’t let me catch a break with you. Who was that brave dumbass that said, "Hey, what if this was Shrek 2, but then it turned into season 8 of Game of Thrones while also making it an introduction to the concept of genocide for kids?” Because that’s this movie!
5 years have passed since the previous movie and Shrek and Fio— I mean Philip and Aurora are now engaged. Fio— I mean Philip’s parents invite Aurora and her godmother Maleficent to dinner, but the humans don't take lightly to her because she's an ogr— I mean a Dark Fey. This encounter gives the evil queen Ingrith (Philip’s mom) the motivation to hatch a plan to take over the throne and start a war against Maleficent and all the fantastical woodland creatures that Aurora rules and Maleficent protects.
Say what you will about everything else, but the visual effects are incredible. The film offers more fantasy-based creatures such as fairies, pixies, etc. and they're all well detailed and animated to fit into this world. While some character designs for the new woodland creatures are kind of familiar, there are some that did catch my eye and I was just in awe with how they looked. The world is still colorful and stunning to look at… and, uhhhh… yeah. That's kind of all the goodwill I have towards this movie.
Back when Disney was actually making movies and not just being a lifeless cash cow selling nothing but live-action remakes to general audiences, their live-action spin-off Maleficent was something I both appreciated and enjoyed. What made me favor it was the character development of the lead, giving her not just a personality, but also dimension, especially since it’s based on an animated movie that lacked personality. Seriously, show me one little girl who said Sleeping Beauty was their favorite Disney princess. Hell, show me one little girl who even knows her name by heart and if they do, it’s most likely because of Maleficent (or Kingdom Hearts). If there was anything this film could've done to continue the spirit of the predecessor it would’ve been going in-depth with other underdeveloped characters such as Aurora and Philip while introducing new ideas, such as the Dark Fey race. Nope! What do we get instead? A sanitized, Disney-fied version of Shrek 2 that immediately face plants into the final season of Game of Thrones where Maleficent doesn't even serve as a character in her own movie, but a damn plot device for this story centered around the union of two opposing parties that erupts into war.
One of the best aspects of the first film was the execution of setting Maleficent as the sympathetic character, especially when compared to humans. Here, every human character serves one of three functions: mindlessly evil, mindlessly stupid, or mindlessly lifeless. Two movies in and Aurora and Philip are devoid of any personality. Disney blatantly didn’t give a shit about Philip — so much so that they re-casted Brenton Thwaites and expected the audience to be none the wiser. At least Aurora has a fun dynamic with Maleficent, but even then she acts rather dumb given the time gap since the predecessor where you’d expect there to be a level of trust between them. Philip is still as dense as paper and Maleficent actually asks her goddaughter why she even loves him. Everyone in Philip’s kingdom, even his villainous mother, is full of hatred against Maleficent and all the other creatures who happen to live across the street from them and it’s never made clear as to why. Every human is just so vile and they rage for war. Not only do you sympathize with her even more, but you feel Maleficent’s justified anger while Aurora, blindly defying all logic, betrays her as well.
During the “meet the parents” sequence — which feels too heavily influenced by Shrek 2, even down to hitting the same damn beats of conversation, including, “HEY IT WOULD BE GREAT TO SEE GRANDCHILDREN IN THE CASTLE” followed by awkward silence — Ingrith does everything in her power to antagonize Maleficent and nobody, not even her own daughter, stands up for her. If it’s an “us or them” situation, I’d definitely “them” because all of the humans are assholes. It makes you want to go:
In a movie called Maleficent: Mistress of Evil, the titular character isn’t given much to do. It focused on nothing but underdeveloped characters prepping for an all-out war, more so on the evil queen who conducts — bear with me here — a mass genocide against the woodland creatures, because that’s exactly what kids need to see today! I commend Disney for actually showing death upon death, making the fantasy elements badass for kids who aren’t old enough to watch Game of Thrones, but when it’s masked as a Maleficent movie where nobody outside of the lead has any dimension whatsoever, that’s where the film ultimately fails.
The film faces a major identity crisis where it doesn’t set any appeal for its audience while cloaking itself to be something that it’s not. The narrative and overall tone is dark and grim, barely identifying with the upbeat (weird word choice, I know) nature of the predecessor. It spends too much time hitting the highlights of the final season of Game of Thrones, including “The Battle of Winterfell” and the “The Mad Queen” (but the mad Queen, in this case, is Michelle Pfeiffer who is doing her best Cersei Lannister impersonation, mimicking her same cold foulness and despicable nature). Meanwhile, it ends up being just as hokey and disappointing as the series as it attempts to tie everything up with a nicely wrapped bow. A literal massacre has taken place and the film goes, “But wait, we still gotta do our happily ever after shit. We gotta stay on brand!”
Who in the hell is this movie for?! It can’t be for young audiences and kids because of the scary imagery and multiple sequences of on-screen deaths throughout, even down to the prelude of the story. It certainly can’t be for preteens with the many mature discussions of war that will fly over their heads. It can’t be for teenagers or adults because there are more mature fantasy shows that will appeal to their nature, such as GoT or Amazon’s latest series Carnival Row. You know, the one where fairies fuck! What I find the most heartbreaking of all is that it’s certainly not for anyone wishing to see a Maleficent movie because she doesn’t even participate in her own story. THAT is the ultimate betrayal. A two-hour movie named Maleficent where the plot plays out around her without much of her participation?
It’s one thing for a sequel to be incapable of justifying its own existence from a narrative standpoint, but when you’re unable to justify your existence and not set a designated demographic for your movie, then I’m only gonna perceive you as a mindless cash grab made by a committee. Given the studio’s track record this year, this is yet another failure for the books. I know you’re busy capitalizing on our childhood, buying properties everywhere, and launching your streaming service that I will most certainly pay for, but in terms of your live-action film division, you need to get your fucking shit together Disney. If you take your young ones to see this without heeding my warning, be sure this will be their introduction to war, discrimination, and genocide because that's what we should get from a Disney movie.
