Maleficent Review (Spoilers)
Jun. 23rd, 2014 11:09 pmWent to watch Maleficent with ![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
philena today!
The Good:
- Loved the setting -- everything was the right balance of realism and fairytale. (Lots of natural materials for the fairy land area, lots of woven and man-made textures for the palace, very seamless CG)
- Loved Maleficent as a character -- clearly not pure good or pure evil, and such sass
- The overall story was cute.
- The raven was awesome -- I really appreciated the nuanced handling of "yes I serve you and you can technically turn me into whatever" and "hey, you have some issues and I am my own bird."
- Lots of smart parallels and callbacks -- the iron thorns at the castle, the dragon, the 16-year-old true-love's kiss, etc.
Small Nitpicks:
- Magic inconsistencies. For some reason metal hurts Maleficent's skin but ... not her wings? She was mowing down all these armored folk and not getting burned in the process. Is green magic grimdark? How come Maleficent with wings fights with physical attacks and Maleficent without wings is clearly so much more magical?
- Political questions. Given that the magic kingdom is introduced as egalitarian and kind, how did Maleficent become dark!Queen over it? (And why did she need to be?) And at the very end, is Aurora queen of the magic kingdom or the human kingdom?
- I feel like the transition from normal Maleficent to dark!Maleficent was VERY poorly handled. First Maleficent cries and does nothing. Then she goes to a random abandoned castle to mope. Then she recruits the Raven. After she found out Stephen used her wings to get the kingship, she goes grimdark and suddenly decides to go home and rule the magic kingdom??? I felt like some simple voiceover one-liners would have been helpful. "She felt incomplete without her wings. Feeling ashamed, home lost all joy to her." "She finally understood the human feelings of envy and hatred, and her magic fed off of that anger and hatred." "If Stephen could wear a crown, so, too, would she."
- Also: Aurora wakes up and is immediately okay with Maleficent?? They didn't end on the best of terms.
If Only
- I feel like there were some potentially powerful themes that were insufficiently explored. For example, I think it's really about the corrupting power of obsession and the healing power of love/acceptance. Stephen's obsession with power, Maleficent's obsession with hatred, Stephen's obsession with revenge -- all of those things corrupted their life, their relationships, and their kingdoms. In contrast, Aurora's unconditional love and acceptance of basically everyone, Maleficent's acceptance of her bitterness and her mistake at the end -- those selfless things are what breaks the curse. You can see some of that in the movie, but inconsistently.
- Also, I kinda wished that Maleficent didn't get her wings back at the end. It weakened the whole "acceptance of her current self" thing. Returning to the previous status quo is much less interesting than accepting and reveling in the changes.
philena today!The Good:
- Loved the setting -- everything was the right balance of realism and fairytale. (Lots of natural materials for the fairy land area, lots of woven and man-made textures for the palace, very seamless CG)
- Loved Maleficent as a character -- clearly not pure good or pure evil, and such sass
- The overall story was cute.
- The raven was awesome -- I really appreciated the nuanced handling of "yes I serve you and you can technically turn me into whatever" and "hey, you have some issues and I am my own bird."
- Lots of smart parallels and callbacks -- the iron thorns at the castle, the dragon, the 16-year-old true-love's kiss, etc.
Small Nitpicks:
- Magic inconsistencies. For some reason metal hurts Maleficent's skin but ... not her wings? She was mowing down all these armored folk and not getting burned in the process. Is green magic grimdark? How come Maleficent with wings fights with physical attacks and Maleficent without wings is clearly so much more magical?
- Political questions. Given that the magic kingdom is introduced as egalitarian and kind, how did Maleficent become dark!Queen over it? (And why did she need to be?) And at the very end, is Aurora queen of the magic kingdom or the human kingdom?
- I feel like the transition from normal Maleficent to dark!Maleficent was VERY poorly handled. First Maleficent cries and does nothing. Then she goes to a random abandoned castle to mope. Then she recruits the Raven. After she found out Stephen used her wings to get the kingship, she goes grimdark and suddenly decides to go home and rule the magic kingdom??? I felt like some simple voiceover one-liners would have been helpful. "She felt incomplete without her wings. Feeling ashamed, home lost all joy to her." "She finally understood the human feelings of envy and hatred, and her magic fed off of that anger and hatred." "If Stephen could wear a crown, so, too, would she."
- Also: Aurora wakes up and is immediately okay with Maleficent?? They didn't end on the best of terms.
If Only
- I feel like there were some potentially powerful themes that were insufficiently explored. For example, I think it's really about the corrupting power of obsession and the healing power of love/acceptance. Stephen's obsession with power, Maleficent's obsession with hatred, Stephen's obsession with revenge -- all of those things corrupted their life, their relationships, and their kingdoms. In contrast, Aurora's unconditional love and acceptance of basically everyone, Maleficent's acceptance of her bitterness and her mistake at the end -- those selfless things are what breaks the curse. You can see some of that in the movie, but inconsistently.
- Also, I kinda wished that Maleficent didn't get her wings back at the end. It weakened the whole "acceptance of her current self" thing. Returning to the previous status quo is much less interesting than accepting and reveling in the changes.
