Maleficent (PG, 1:37, Imax, 3-D) — fantasy: fairy tales; biggie; formula; OSIT feminists
Well, after only a week, you're probably out of chances to see Maleficent in Imax (as Edge of Tomorrow takes over the big screen at 8 PM), but it'll still be available in 3-D as well as 2-D. IMO, not worth the premium price for either of the frills.
I enjoyed Maleficent and give it a 7, but I guess I was hoping for more. In particular, if you saw Super 8, you know what a tremendous talent Elle Fanning is, and that was back in 2011. Here she plays the role of Aurora, the sleeping beauty who's the ostensible central character of the original Grimm Brothers fairy tale, and all she's expected to do is skip about, smiling and perky, looking all dimpled and rosy-cheeked and fresh-faced, and very very blond. With so little to do, she comes off as perhaps a little dim or simple in addition to being cloyingly vapid. But she clearly has a heart of gold, and that endears her to all who meet her.
The odd couple here are the super-powerful fairy Maleficent (Angelina Jolie) and the power- obsessed peasant boy Stefan (Sharlto Copley from District 9), denizens of naboring kingdoms with radically different lifestyles. Stefan's is a typical ruff-and-ready, ruthless, medieval human kingdom, while The Moors, where Maleficent hangs out with a host of animated (but universally insignificant) critters, is a literal fairyland. They meet young and hit it off, but as they grow older, Stefan's ambition leads him to betray Maleficent, and he cuts off her wings to present to his king as evidence that he has vanquished the chief defender of the naboring realm.
Maleficent, horrified and outraged, waits until Stefan — now elevated to the throne — hosts a christening celebration for his new-born dotter before exacting her revenge, in the form of a curse upon the infant that she will prick her finger on a spinning wheel before sundown on her 16th birthday and fall into a deep sleep, awakenable only by love's true kiss. That's the basic fairy tale, and the rest of the movie is devoted to the untold part of the story, which is not as neat and clean as has come down to us in legend.
Suffice it to say that neither Maleficent nor her pet crow are beings you want to be on the bad side of, and Disney pulls out all of its special effect to underline the point. I would've preferred a little more humanity, altho, to be fair, one of the reasons Imax was overkill for this is that much of the screen time is devoted to closeups of the characters. But they're mainly just doing completely in-character line readings.
I suppose I shouldn't expect too much realism in what's basically a fairy tale. And it puts a nice feminist gloss on the tired helpless-princess trope. Still, I ended up wanting more.
Well, after only a week, you're probably out of chances to see Maleficent in Imax (as Edge of Tomorrow takes over the big screen at 8 PM), but it'll still be available in 3-D as well as 2-D. IMO, not worth the premium price for either of the frills.
I enjoyed Maleficent and give it a 7, but I guess I was hoping for more. In particular, if you saw Super 8, you know what a tremendous talent Elle Fanning is, and that was back in 2011. Here she plays the role of Aurora, the sleeping beauty who's the ostensible central character of the original Grimm Brothers fairy tale, and all she's expected to do is skip about, smiling and perky, looking all dimpled and rosy-cheeked and fresh-faced, and very very blond. With so little to do, she comes off as perhaps a little dim or simple in addition to being cloyingly vapid. But she clearly has a heart of gold, and that endears her to all who meet her.
The odd couple here are the super-powerful fairy Maleficent (Angelina Jolie) and the power- obsessed peasant boy Stefan (Sharlto Copley from District 9), denizens of naboring kingdoms with radically different lifestyles. Stefan's is a typical ruff-and-ready, ruthless, medieval human kingdom, while The Moors, where Maleficent hangs out with a host of animated (but universally insignificant) critters, is a literal fairyland. They meet young and hit it off, but as they grow older, Stefan's ambition leads him to betray Maleficent, and he cuts off her wings to present to his king as evidence that he has vanquished the chief defender of the naboring realm.
Maleficent, horrified and outraged, waits until Stefan — now elevated to the throne — hosts a christening celebration for his new-born dotter before exacting her revenge, in the form of a curse upon the infant that she will prick her finger on a spinning wheel before sundown on her 16th birthday and fall into a deep sleep, awakenable only by love's true kiss. That's the basic fairy tale, and the rest of the movie is devoted to the untold part of the story, which is not as neat and clean as has come down to us in legend.
Suffice it to say that neither Maleficent nor her pet crow are beings you want to be on the bad side of, and Disney pulls out all of its special effect to underline the point. I would've preferred a little more humanity, altho, to be fair, one of the reasons Imax was overkill for this is that much of the screen time is devoted to closeups of the characters. But they're mainly just doing completely in-character line readings.
I suppose I shouldn't expect too much realism in what's basically a fairy tale. And it puts a nice feminist gloss on the tired helpless-princess trope. Still, I ended up wanting more.