My Review of Maleficent · 11:50pm Jun 11th, 2021
Rating Scale:
12/10—a complete masterpiece; flawless and outstanding
11/10—Excellent, near-perfect film
10/10—the standard rating; awesome film with a couple of flaws
9/10—a wonderful film with several flaws
8/10–a great film with numerous flaws but not enough to ruin it
7/10—a fun and entertaining movie; not great but still enjoyable
6/10—a slightly above average film; it is something I might watch again
5/10—mediocre movie; not awful but not great either
4/10—a below average film; it could have been much better
3/10—a bad film; poorly written and poorly executed
2/10—a very bad movie; the few good things in the movie overshadowed by the bad things
1/10—a terrible movie; a total waste of time
0/10—a worthless piece of abomination; should have never been made
Greetings, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to another Disney Friday evening with another Disney review. This time, I will be talking about the live-action adaption of Disney's most quintessential villainess in existence: Maleficent. Now, as far as the original character herself is concerned, she is completely overrated and an overall boring Disney villain. I get the fact she is one of the most popular villains in the Disney universe if not the most famous one, but I really don't see how or why she had earned such a title of being "the best Disney villain" or "one of the greatest villains ever". To me, any villain out there can be the best Disney villain such as Scar, Frollo, Hades, or Rasputin who have a lot more personality than Maleficent. Of course, that is just my subjective viewpoint.
Plus, I have seen plenty of other villainesses who have more character than Maleficent. Overall, she was relatively boring in Sleeping Beauty, and this supposedly origin movie of her clearly didn't make it any better. Now, to be frank with you guys, I initially liked this film the first time I watched it myself. I don't know why, but this film's visual effects, cinematography, and score were very impressive as I first watched it. However, as time went by, I soon lost interest and respect for it as I thought over on the story and the way they portrayed its characters.
First off, I don't really care much that they made Maleficent a "good guy", "misunderstood victim", or "anti-hero" in this version because I don't normally think that anything should carbon-copy a source material. As long as the movie is more original with creative writing, then that is what counts. Unfortunately, this movie is full of dullness and bland story-telling.
The other thing I will give credit for is the performance of Angelina Jolie as the titular character. At least she did the absolute best of her abilities to give life to her character and make Maleficent seem so hurt, betrayed, misunderstood, and convincing. I cannot say the same for the other characters in this film. Speaking of which, I allow me to give my two cents in regards to Stefan very briefly.
Stefan was a poorly written antagonist with underdeveloped motivations. The writers missed a golden opportunity to make him a sympathetic villain since there was plenty of room for him to actually feel conflicted. Instead, right towards the climax, he acts like a twirly-mustache villain because the movie needs to have one apparently. Besides that, there is nothing else I can say about this idiot.
Again, I still think the visuals, score, and cinematography were great although the movie suffers from the mediocre writing, generic plot, and bland humor. Do I think that the character should just remain pure evil and not be portrayed as a sympathetic type where we feel sorry for her despite her evil actions? Honestly, I am fine with either way as long as the character has more personality and is done right. So I like Angelina's acting which made her character bearable, just not her character that much. That's it. So I will give this film a 5/10. Man, I feel tired as I'm writing about it which says a lot about this movie.
Peace out.
Mirror, mirror on the wall. Who's the nastiest of them all?
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"Mirror, Mirror on the wall, who is the most overrated of them all?"
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(Laughing)
Whether you’d be okay with me thinking this is something I don’t know, but this movie’s actually one of my favorites. A perennial favorite amongst my family too.
I loved that instead of openly copying “Sleeping Beauty” the filmmakers decided to go all-out by creating an alternate take. The rest of the film’s aspects were fun to watch too. Overall, I prefer this movie over something like “The Prestige” any day.