Maleficent: Mistress of Evil

First off, let’s clarify one point right away.  Maleficent the “Mistress of Evil” is NOT a villain.  This is a sequel to the 2014 live-action feature which was a revisionist take on Disney’s Sleeping Beauty.  Maleficent wasn’t bad in that film either, just misunderstood.  Here she’s actually bordering on virtuous because there’s another character that becomes the main antagonist.

You may recall that Maleficent (Angelina Jolie) is Princess Aurora’s fairy godmother.  Aurora (Elle Fanning) Queen of the Moors wants to marry Prince Phillip (Harris Dickinson).   Their vacant personalities are dull.  Perhaps it shouldn’t matter since this young couple in love isn’t the focus, but I felt no sympathy for them.  In fact, I couldn’t relate to any living thing in this film.  That includes all of the whimsical assemblages of flora and fauna that are aggressively thrust into the audience’s face.  Problems arise during an awkward family dinner.  Aurora’s parents are King John and Queen Ingrith played by Robert Lindsay and Michelle Pfeiffer.  They invite their prospective in-law Maleficent over to dinner to ostensibly welcome her into the family.  However, the Queen has ulterior motives and starts an argument with Maleficent that turns really ugly.

Angelina Jolie brings true movie star charisma to the role.  It’s nice to see her acting again.  Jolie has only appeared in one picture since the last installment — the box office bomb By the Sea in 2015.  She’s at her best when she’s desperately trying to make nice with the royals and failing miserably.  The costumes (Maleficent got an Oscar nomination for this) are spectacular and the production design is luxurious.  However, the sheer amount of CGI in this concoction is almost too much for the human eye to comprehend.  The technology rendering various elves, nymphs, sylphs, sprites, and pixies infects every frame.

I lost track of how many artificially rendered side characters exist in this world.  The three pixies played by Imelda Staunton, Juno Temple, and Lesley Manville are an abomination.  Their manifestation hasn’t changed from the 2014 entry.  These fairies don’t resemble anything even remotely organic.  Their shrunken faces, squeezed into diminutive bodies are merely graphical displays.  The nadir is when one of them utters the colloquial expression: “I see what you did there.”   A chattering Sonic the hedgehog-like critter named Pinto speaks in a cutesy high pitched language that I can only describe as Ewok.   There’s a mushroom fairy named Button that gets captured by an evil goblin scientist with big ears named Lickspittle (Warwick Davis).   He resembles Yoda.  There are also tree creatures that evoke Groot from Guardians of the Galaxy (or the Ents in Lord of the Rings – take your pick).  On-screen, it’s just a visual assault of random stuff.

The story is a bloated mishmash that superficially draws more from Game of Thrones or Lord of the Rings than the animated classic from 1959 on which this was inspired.  Only shapeshifter Diaval, Maleficent’s right-hand man, is able to register some presence.  You’d think a confrontation between Michelle Pfeiffer (bedecked in pearls) and Angelina Jolie (at her vampiest) would be a captivating showdown.  Nope! Maleficent: Mistress of Evil bungles even that.  A lot of the blame can be placed at the doorstep of screenwriter Linda Woolverton who wrote a better screenplay for Maleficent (2014). The script is simply awful. Though the multimedia artists are definitely working against her.  The movie is more concerned with digitally enhanced special effects than actual drama.  There’s no emotional weight to their interactions.  I was numb watching this tale play out.  Back in 2007, Michelle Pfeiffer appeared in a Matthew Vaughn directed fantasy called Stardust.  That award-winning delight is infinitely superior to this dreck.  If this review can have a positive effect, it will inspire someone to go watch a good film.

10-17-19