The classic story of Sleeping Beauty is reimagined following the perspective of its villain, Maleficent. After being betrayed by King Stefan, Maleficent seeks revenge against him by cursing his daughter Aurora. However, she begins to regret her decisions after growing fond of the girl and seeks to right her wrongs.

This movie was a mixed bag for me, and it left me feeling different ways at almost every other scene. Some elements have the grandiose feel of a fantasy adventure -- not quite Lord of the Rings mind you, but akin to The Hobbit or Narnia films. Others, though, just feel like a bit of a messy, convoluted mix of events to try and paint a different picture of the classic fairy tale. In my opinion, the film tries too hard to make Maleficent the hero and Stefan the villain without entirely altering parts of the source material, making for a bit of a confusing and back-and-forth story. It does make sense towards the end, but there's just so much back-and-forth throughout that it makes my head spin and leaves quite a few plot holes or disjointed story beats. The characterizations are all pretty well-done; they do make you feel sympathy for Maleficent, which is the most important point of the film. It's a good, decent fantasy film; not an epic by any means, but something fun to watch, but it still doesn't match up to the original Sleeping Beauty in my book. Recommended for fans of fantasy and the classic Disney movie.

Content Concerns: There's some fantasy violence and a few scenes of death, but it's all relatively ambiguous or offscreen, so there's nothing overtly graphic or concerning.

(April 5, 2023) ( )

Acting: 3.5; Theme: 4.0; Content: 4.5; Language: 5.0; Overall: 3.5

This is the "prequel" to Sleeping Beauty giving the back ground of the evil fairy, Maleficent (Angelina Jolie) and her curse upon Aurora (Elle Fanning), the young princess. There are several key changes in this film that changed the originality of the real Sleeping Beauty classic.

***April 5, 2023*** ( )

PG

A powerful fairy curses a princess.

It's entertaining, but there isn't anything that wasn't much better in Sleeping Beauty. Still, movie producers without ideas of their own could do a lot worse for a source of material to mine. A movie about Maleficent is a great idea. Making her the hero, though, is a terrible idea. They go through all that trouble (ie, the first half of the movie) effectively establishing why she's evil. Then she just stops being evil for no apparent reason. The original Maleficent is one of the most awesome villains of all time, and seeing a version of her that so easily softens is extremely disappointing.

Concept: B
Story: C
Characters: D
Dialog: F
Pacing: C
Cinematography: B
Special effects/design: A
Acting: C
Music: B

Enjoyment: C plus

GPA: 2.2/4 ( )

I wasn't sure what to expect from this film but I enjoyed it. I always quite enjoy these stories which try to rewrite familiar stories whilst making the "bad guy" not so bad but not changing the story. It's clever when done well e.g "Wicked". I didn't find this film fantastic but enjoyable enough. ( )