Maleficent Review

RYAN: Wow.  Maleficent.  Finally.  Since we knew this film was in the making, it has been something to look forward to and what a thrill to actually see it.  It’s all about Angelina Jolie and those cheekbones and horns and eyes!

CHUCK: Oh those cheekbones.

RYAN: This film falls into my number one genre – fantasy and magic.  Visually it’s a stunner.  It’s reminiscent of Legend but obviously cooler because effects have advanced so much.  It’s along the lines of Oz the Great and Powerful, Alice in Wonderland, Avatar… because this marks the directorial debut of Robert Stromberg, who was the production designer of those three films.  To see him fully realize his vision for this story was beyond enchanting.  It’s just beautiful.

CHUCK: It really is gorgeous but there’s so much to look at; a lot going on.

RYAN: As for the story, it does indeed give you Maleficent’s origin story, but more so, is a live action remake of the animated classic Sleeping Beauty.

CHUCK: It was marketed much more as being the origin story, but this really is a retelling in the way that Ever After was a live retelling of Cinderella.

RYAN: I also expected this to just make an evil character sympathetic as Wicked did to The Wicked Witch of the West from The Wizard of Oz. But this movie is different.  It’s not what you expect and I don’t do spoilers so we can’t say more.

CHUCK: There’s actually so much we can’t say because of the no-spoilers-policy.

RYAN: But that’s cool though.  It’s nice to have the fresh experience and be surprised by a story.

CHUCK: They did go in a new direction with a classic fairy tale, we can say that much.

RYAN: I loved the audio narration during the beginning of the film.  It was like reading a storybook or just listening to the most incredible fairy tale book on tape you’ve ever heard. I enjoyed that so much.

CHUCK: See that was the weakest part of the film to me.  I didn’t care about it but it makes me question whether I’m just getting older.  I feel like there was too much going on all the time on screen.  Stromberg’s strength is the visual so it was just unleashed but I wish there had been some restraint there.

RYAN: I found it all to be a visual treat.  And let’s just call it: Angelina Jolie was born to play this part.  She was marvelous.  You can’t imagine anyone else playing Maleficent after seeing her.  She just is.

CHUCK: She was ABsolutely brilliant.

RYAN: Elle Fanning was better than I expected her to be but I was still a bit put off by her faux accent and she just did a lot of smile-acting.

CHUCK: But that’s what she was hired to do.  She has such an endearing smile.

RYAN: And Sharlto Copley was just horribly miscast.  He’s too old and whiney as the king.

CHUCK: He was too old but the part was also weakly written.  There wasn’t a clear delineation as to what he was really supposed to be.

RYAN: Oh I thought it was perfectly clear but I almost want an origin story for his character.  Some motivation wasn’t really explained but I wonder if some things hit the cutting room floor along the way.

CHUCK: Ultimately, I didn’t really buy into the story or any of the emotion or magic.  But everyone in your movie club and everyone else walking out really loved it. I think my expectations were just super high.

RYAN: I heard some people say it’s their favorite movie they’ve seen this year and a couple people even mentioned it was their favorite Disney movie.  I certainly won’t go that far but I loved it.  It’s a stunning movie to the point you could just watch it on mute and enjoy it.  And then the score, the story and Angie’s performance are all wonderful.  It’s gonna be very popular and do well.

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