Does anybody at Disney even work on script development anymore? Everything they do these days is a repackaged retread; it’s all “Aladdin reboot” this and “Frozen II” that. Personally, I cannot wait for the non-animated version of The Apple Dumpling Gang.
And once-too-often-to-the-well adequately describes today’s entry, Maleficent: Mistress of Evil, a film in which the Angelina Jolie was clearly asked to hone her cheekbones to razor-sharp intensity, but not asked to do any such honing to her acting or characterization of the titular Maleficent, once a scourge of kingdoms, now more of an unwelcome dinner guest.
In an opening intended to define your little boy’s sexuality, pixies, fairies, gnomes and bunnies all congregate to witness the proposal of Prince Philip (Harris Dickinson) to his neighbor, forest Queen Aurora (Elle Fanning). Uh oh. Maleficent (Jolie) ain’t gonna like this.
Convincing both sets of parents proves difficult, but soon enough, Philip’s folks give in all so we can re-live Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner? in fairy tale fashion. As if inviting the perpetually Halloween costumed Maleficent to rehearsal dinner at the castle wasn’t enough, Queen Ingrith (Michelle Pfeiffer, who has taken to the type-cast of fairy tale crone like few women before her) constantly baits the conversation by pointing out how nice it will be for Aurora to get the first-hand experience of tableware and indoor plumbing.
It’s hard to know exactly who is to blame here. The movie clearly wants us to find Ingrith is in the wrong, but, you know, does “sticks and stones” not apply to the fairy world? I mean, when your idiot brother-in-law talks about how wonderful it is that we keep border children in cages as a deterrent, it’s not altogether acceptable to start going medieval on his castle, now is it? OTOH, Miss Manners would probably point out to Queen Ingrith that attempting to murder your dinner guest is a bit of a social faux pas in and of itself.
Hence, we go from fairies to war in under 15 minutes – why it’s something for girls and boys! Yeah, that’ll work. Who wrote this?
As if the fairy overload at the outset wasn’t enough to churn the average stomach, Maleficent is transported from dinner to the land of her people, an underground Avatar-like haven where all the folks have ibex horns and batwings … and, good God, they all have cheekbones that 
can cut diamonds. Geez, no wonder you people live under ground; how can you get anything done when you spend all your time being pretty?
Incensed by the upcoming wedding between compatible lovers, the batfolks decide it’s time for war. Luckily for Queen Ingrith, this is exactly what she’s been hoping for and war is gonna happen. And if the film didn’t lose me before, it sure did now, because I really cannot figure out how to interpret the actions of Maleficent from here on in: the wedding between your adopted daughter and the boy she loves makes you livid to the point of unbridled aggression, but introduced to the world of your own kind and watching them die on your behalf does nothing for you … really?
The post-climax resolution in this film was also far too pat, too Disney. I mean, here we have some very ugly bigotry going on, a little pre-wedding genocide, the discovery of torture and Josef Mengele-like scientific abuse, but a cease-fire and a few pretty words and it’s all good, right? I mean what’s a war crime or two among newfangled bffs, huh?
Maleficent: Mistress of Evil is the epitome of squeezing the sponge once too often. There wasn’t much here and the fabricated Romeo and Juliet-like plot doesn’t really work because the kids themselves prove less important than the warring adults. The film comes with a built-in dream of living in a bigot-free world where children of all sizes, shapes, and colors will all come together and happily invest in Disney products again and again, yet the message of tolerance will almost certainly be lost here. The genocidally-disposed Lord of the Rings trilogy is likelier to engender peace than this film.
“Shakespearean?!” Don’t waste your breath
Explaining about Juliet’s death
The wings of a bat
And the eyes of a cat
Aren’t those ingredients in Macbeth?
Rated PG, 118 Minutes
Director: Joachim Rønning
Writer: Micah Fitzerman-Blue, Noah Harpster, Linda Woolverton
Genre: Trouble with the in-laws
Type of being most likely to enjoy this film: Disney accountants (I assume)
Type of being least likely to enjoy this film: Realists
