Christian’s Grade: C+
When I first saw Maleficent (2014), I felt conflicted about it. So, I took a couple of days and thought it over. I exchanged thoughts with a couple of people and thought it over some more. And what I found is this; though it’s not a bad movie in its own right and has several good aspects to note, the more I thought about this movie, the less I liked it.
On the plus side, they loaded the film with good actors. Angelina Jolie was perfect casting as the lead and managed to brilliantly hit all the key vocal tones to sound just like the character from the Disney animated Sleeping Beauty (1959). Her performance was brilliant, as were most of the key actors. The visuals were amazing, of course, because the director, Robert Stromberg, has a lengthy background in visual effects (although this was his directorial debut). So, with all that going for it, what’s my problem with the movie?
The story. This is one of those incidents where the public was misled by the marketing department. They were selling this movie as Sleeping Beauty told from the villain’s perspective, thus making her deeper & more sympathetic. Something that doesn’t step on the toes of the original Disney classic. But what was delivered was a story that trashed & invalidated what came before. Honestly, for that and a couple of other reasons, I’m shocked Disney backed this project. Maleficent is a complete reimagining of Sleeping Beauty, where the villain is the hero, and just about every other familiar character has been written as evil, stupid, or useless. Now, of course, there is a place for this kind of radical storytelling where the world you thought you knew is turned upside down. But for a corporate giant with the history and branding of Disney to allow one of their foundational classics to be trampled like this doesn’t make any sense to me.
But forget all of that. It’s just my own personal nostalgia for classic Disney. The real issue I take with Maleficent comes in when you ask the simple question, what’s the movie about? On the surface, it’s about a fairy who was wronged and seeks revenge only to be redeemed by the love of a child in the end. But that’s on the surface. What this story is really about is date rape. If you haven’t seen the movie yet, I know what you’re thinking. I thought it, too, when, before seeing the movie, I read that a reviewer took issue with the rape theme in Maleficent. I thought that can’t be right. It’s probably just some jerk reviewer reading themes into the movie that aren’t there. I was wrong. It’s there. Hopefully, all the little girls in the theaters when this movie was released didn’t read it that way, but I guarantee you the parents in the seats next to them did, and it was a little uncomfortable. Because, come on, that’s not what you sign up for when buying a ticket to a Disney movie for you and your kids. It’s more than a little creepy. Still don’t believe me? Here’s how it breaks down.
Maleficent falls in love with a human boy, Stefan. At 16, he leaves her to earn fame, fortune & power. So, he’s a douchebag. Ultimately, Maleficent grows to become powerful and respected in her own right and has a bounty put on her head for not giving over her people’s land to the king. At this point, Stefan, now a young man and terribly unsuccessful in his endeavors, sees an opportunity to use his former relationship with Maleficent to get what he wants. So, he goes to her and apologizes for ever leaving, and she falls for him all over again; then what does he do? He drugs Maleficent, and while she sleeps, he realizes he doesn’t have it in him to kill her. Instead, Stefan violates her by cutting off her wings and taking them to the king as proof he’s the big man of the kingdom.
Meanwhile, Maleficent has a pretty heart-wrenching scene which can be labeled a “morning after the attack” scene. So, while the rape is a metaphorical one, it’s pretty thinly veiled and not really appropriate for the type of audience this movie is attracting. Along with that, I’ve heard it said there’s a strong feminist undertone here. Maybe, but if so, it does the feminists a disservice when you consider the heroine takes her revenge on her attacker by cursing his baby girl, only to have second thoughts later and try to kidnap her instead. That’s psycho-ex-girlfriend territory. Also, every male character in the story is evil, except for prince Phillip, who’s an impotent moron. That’s stereotypical stereotyping.
So that’s the what. My only remaining question is, why? Why go that way? The villain doesn’t have to be a hero to be sympathetic. They just need to be understood. There was plenty of open area within the construct of the existing Sleeping Beauty tale to make a great story without all of this extremism. Maybe I’m taking this a little harder than an adult male with no children should, but I grew up on Disney, and as a grown-up Disney kid with a “Peter Pan” complex, this stuff matters.
To be clear, I didn’t hate the whole movie. It had several great moments, many of which reference the animated Sleeping Beauty. I just felt a little tricked by the marketing and the direction the story took. I hate seeing a talented director miss an opportunity to make something great only to settle for making something that looks pretty. Hollywood already has Michael Bay for that.
I remember seeing this in the theatre and being completely underwhelmed. I honestly don’t know who the target audience was for this between the marketing and the finished product.
I enjoyed the darkly operatic style of the film, but the revisionist angle left me cold. I’m all for telling classic stories from different perspectives, much like “Wicked” did with “The Wizard of Oz,” but turning Maleficent into a misunderstood hero was a bridge too far. I think it would’ve been better to keep Maleficent as the villainess but with layers of sympathy to understand her dark motivations.