By Chris Minitelli
Staff Writer
Among the array of different summer movies that came out in the last few months was Disney’s latest family film “Maleficent.”
This movie, which stars Angelina Jolie as the title character, takes a much different look at the classic fairy tale of “Sleeping Beauty.”
In this movie, the fairy tale is told yet again, but this time from the perspective of Maleficent — the apparent villain of the story. The film begins by showing how Maleficent was a strong fairy when she was younger. However, she loses her innocence and becomes vengeful once the future king, the father of Sleeping Beauty, betrays her.
Throughout the movie, the audience is shown Maleficent’s history and given more subtext for her actions that take place in the classic story. It takes a much more sympathetic tone and approach on Maleficent’s character as the audience learns about the hardships and troubles she faced throughout her life.
After watching this film, I thought it was quite a letdown. Jolie gave a lackluster performance that could have been much stronger and more convincing.
The supporting cast, which included Elle Fanning, Sharlto Copley and Imelda Staunton, also fell flat as they failed to deliver the storyline well enough. Most of the characters lacked conviction and development, which left them boring and somewhat annoying.
While this is the case, the writing behind “Maleficent” was actually more impressive than I had expected. The film did a nice job giving the audience a fresh and different look on a widely known story.
I was surprised with how well some scenes in “Maleficent” were thought out and developed. The writers of “Maleficent” did surprisingly well in creating enough original ideas for this movie that made it that much better in the long run.
Overall, “Maleficent” is a pretty forgettable film. Although the writing was much better than I had expected, it still fell flat.
And while certain aspects of this film were notable, too much of it lacked enough substance.
The movie could have been much stronger if there had been certain changes made to it. Jolie could have given a much stronger performance, and therefore the film may have been much more memorable.
