MOVIE REVIEW: Maleficent - Mistress Of Evil
(Shackled - Vertical Horizon)
Ahh, Disney. Has everyone ever beat the money tree so prolifically? I think not.
There's been a wide swath of reboots in the movie industry over the last 15 years, and Disney hasn't missed a chance to get involved with that. Some of their results have been questionable at best, but some of them have been rather enjoyable.
In the second camp was 2014's Maleficent, a shockingly good revisit to the classic Sleeping Beauty story. Admittedly, part of that shock was how excellent Angelina Jolie was in the role, creepy facial make-up and everything. If you haven't seen this yet, you need to. The whole movie is outstanding and Jolie absolutely crushes the whole role from beginning to end.
Fast forward five years and the first trailers for the sequel dropped, and I'll be the first to admit that I squee'd a little.
The mistress has finally returned! Should you rejoice at her arrival?
THE SHORT VERSION:
Long live the queen, baby!
THE LONG VERSION:
I don't want to say too much about how awesome this movie was because I don't want to spoil it. Here's what you need to know going in:
- WATCH THE FIRST ONE. Seriously, if you don't watch it, you're missing out. There's a lot of that film that's present in the second one's plot. This movie deserves that you watch the first one.
- Noooot sure I'd take the little kids to this one. Teens will love it, but based on the squealing I had in my movie theater, the five year-olds couldn't hold their stuff together. This movie goes to a few very un-Disney places in the third act that really made me raise my eyebrows.
There's a lot happening in 'Mistress Of Evil', and you might think that detracts from the movie. Somehow, it doesn't. Somehow, the entire film feels well-paced and cohesive. There aren't any surprises, and the movie's major plot points can be seen coming from a long way away. The film actually uses a lot of that in the first two acts to ratchet up the tension for the third act. By the time that third act starts, you know shit's going down, and it's gonna be brutal, and the suspense has really started to gnaw at you. That's a bold movie for Disney, especially for a movie that might be misconstrued as 'light-hearted' by some. It's insanely effective for the adults though, and when things to begin to unfold, it's horrifying. "Bad Things(tm)" happen in this movie. Unfortunately, the bad things are what makes the movie less than its predecessor.
There's this threshold with movies where you can come back from the film's climax and still laugh, up to a certain point. Things can only get -so bad- and still allow the audience to laugh and be soothed when the credits roll. This...ain't one of those movies. This movie gets real, and it gets dark, and when it all ends, it's not satisfying. Worse, when I film gets this real and this dark, it tends to start shining bright lights on all of those plot and logic holes present in every fairy tale. We forgive those in fantasy movies because things never get real enough to engage that part of our brain. 'Mistress Of Evil' steps over that line a few times and it absolutely does wake that part of your brain up. That's a shame, because once that happens, you'll spend more time focusing on the warts of the film rather than the other 98% of it, which is excellent.
This is absolutely a movie worth seeing, just understand what you're walking into before you do.
HERE THERE BE SPOILERS!
...Seriously, please go watch the movie. It's very good
No? Okay, let's begin.
- Game Of Thrones called, and they want their wedding back. Seriously, Disney. I know that GRRM didn't invent the massacre, but God knows he popularized it with his damn TV show. And on that note...
- Holy shit, Disney! GENOCIDE? Are you kidding me? What the fairy-winged fuck of a bad day were you having when you approved that shit in the church? But wait, there's more!
- LET'S DESECRATE A SACRED BURIAL GROUND, DIG THOSE BURIED THERE UP, AND MAKE WEAPONS OF WAR OUT OF THEM SPECIFICALLY DESIGNED TO KILL THE ONES THAT STILL LIVE! (Flails) Seriously, guys?!
- We have to talk about the ending of this film, and the fate of Ingrith. This, a woman who plotted to kill every fae in the moors, who had them all rounded up and has started their mass execution under a flag of truce, a woman to full-knowingly authorized the complete harvest of the Tomb Blooms. Who conspired against Aurora, who tried to kill her several times, who cursed the king by STABBING HIM. Who killed Maleficent and any number of the already endangered Dark Fae. Aaaaand her punishment in the end of the movie is to get turned into a goat and laughed at. No. No, I don't fucking think so. After she's done all of this, you're telling me someone or something doesn't perish her in a horrible fashion? You're telling me that when the Dark Fae corner her in that chamber at the end of it all, they don't shred her in the blink of an eye? That the king doesn't have her executed when he recovers, that none of the soldiers accidentally sticks a spear into her or... no. She gets turned into a fucking goat and laughed at. This is THE biggest problem with this movie. You cannot go to the dark places that this film went to without paying it off at the end.
- I know you had to get paid, Warwick Davis, but come on. Did you even read the script? You're one of the biggest damn loopholes in the whole movie, but we'll get to that.
- Not sure who made the decision to not make Prince Phillip useless, but well done that. That could have gone a bunch of different ways, but Phillip comes off as a legitimately good guy here. Conversely...
- I'm not sure who decided to make Aurora a simpering moron, but it's the 21st century, folks. You can do better.
- Maleficent spends most of the movie in skin-tight clothing, so you clearly have a good idea about how she's proportioned. That's neither here nor there, but is anyone else paying attention to her outfit when she's in the Cave Of Origin? Or rather, to the lack of it? Then there's the fact that She looks like freakin' Tifa Lockhart from Final Fantasy VII! What is that all about?! Let me just make that live for you real quick:
- The king in this movie is a good man, and an idiot. How you not only miss how much of an evil creature your wife is -- hello, her name is Ingrith for pity's sake! -- but you also proceed to miss the mass stockpiling of weapons that your wife is overseeing in the bowels of your castle. Really?
- Can we talk about how much Jenn Murray's face looked in this movie please? She looked like Helena Bonham Carter's Queen Of Hearts!
- Diaval is a treasure. That is all.
- PLOTHOLES ABOUND:
Convenient that the Dark Fae just happened to be in the woods while those guys were stealing the first tomb bloom. Convenient that they just happened to know where Maleficent was and rescue her.
You're telling me that Lickspittle is a fae, was winged, had his wings removed -- probably by a human, natch! -- and ended up serving in the bowels of the castle like a second-rate citizen? ...The fuck? And he's the kind of master alchemist that knows how to make customized death out of a flower that just randomly happens to come back with a random soldier?
Pretty much everything about Ingrith.
Maleficent is clearly the baddest bitch in the world, and yet she lets her curse, a curse that was specifically made and placed on AURORA, somehow bleed over onto a spindle? And doesn't she say that no power on earth can break it? Seriously, check this out:
And yet...the spindle is a key part of the sequel, and doesn't she destroy it, thereby lifting the curse that...no power on earth could...Yeah. Never mind...
Aren't the clouds of death dust sort of unnecessary? What was the point of collecting all of that iron weaponry if you're just going to fall back on the red dust?
...No one was guarding the tomb blooms, the one source of Ultimate Faerie Death(tm) in the entire world?!
Where in the blue fuck did Lickspittle come from? You've got a fae, renowned in this film universe for NOT being sophisticated in the sciences, who is quite the scientist and engineer. A fae that is going out of his way to happily make genocide dust that will affect his entire kind! How do you not tell his story? How do you not get his ass dead as soon as the movie resolves itself for being an utter monster?
Lickspittle specifically tells Ingrith that the process of extracting whatever he needs from the tomb blooms is extremely labor intensive and that he needs a ton of blooms to even consider what Ingrith is asking. Not long after, Ingrith suddenly has enough weaponized death to mount a comprehensive defense of her castle?! I'm sorry, WHAT?!
Ahh, Disney. Has everyone ever beat the money tree so prolifically? I think not.
There's been a wide swath of reboots in the movie industry over the last 15 years, and Disney hasn't missed a chance to get involved with that. Some of their results have been questionable at best, but some of them have been rather enjoyable.
In the second camp was 2014's Maleficent, a shockingly good revisit to the classic Sleeping Beauty story. Admittedly, part of that shock was how excellent Angelina Jolie was in the role, creepy facial make-up and everything. If you haven't seen this yet, you need to. The whole movie is outstanding and Jolie absolutely crushes the whole role from beginning to end.
Fast forward five years and the first trailers for the sequel dropped, and I'll be the first to admit that I squee'd a little.
The mistress has finally returned! Should you rejoice at her arrival?
THE SHORT VERSION:
Long live the queen, baby!
THE LONG VERSION:
I don't want to say too much about how awesome this movie was because I don't want to spoil it. Here's what you need to know going in:
- WATCH THE FIRST ONE. Seriously, if you don't watch it, you're missing out. There's a lot of that film that's present in the second one's plot. This movie deserves that you watch the first one.
- Noooot sure I'd take the little kids to this one. Teens will love it, but based on the squealing I had in my movie theater, the five year-olds couldn't hold their stuff together. This movie goes to a few very un-Disney places in the third act that really made me raise my eyebrows.
There's a lot happening in 'Mistress Of Evil', and you might think that detracts from the movie. Somehow, it doesn't. Somehow, the entire film feels well-paced and cohesive. There aren't any surprises, and the movie's major plot points can be seen coming from a long way away. The film actually uses a lot of that in the first two acts to ratchet up the tension for the third act. By the time that third act starts, you know shit's going down, and it's gonna be brutal, and the suspense has really started to gnaw at you. That's a bold movie for Disney, especially for a movie that might be misconstrued as 'light-hearted' by some. It's insanely effective for the adults though, and when things to begin to unfold, it's horrifying. "Bad Things(tm)" happen in this movie. Unfortunately, the bad things are what makes the movie less than its predecessor.
There's this threshold with movies where you can come back from the film's climax and still laugh, up to a certain point. Things can only get -so bad- and still allow the audience to laugh and be soothed when the credits roll. This...ain't one of those movies. This movie gets real, and it gets dark, and when it all ends, it's not satisfying. Worse, when I film gets this real and this dark, it tends to start shining bright lights on all of those plot and logic holes present in every fairy tale. We forgive those in fantasy movies because things never get real enough to engage that part of our brain. 'Mistress Of Evil' steps over that line a few times and it absolutely does wake that part of your brain up. That's a shame, because once that happens, you'll spend more time focusing on the warts of the film rather than the other 98% of it, which is excellent.
This is absolutely a movie worth seeing, just understand what you're walking into before you do.
HERE THERE BE SPOILERS!
...Seriously, please go watch the movie. It's very good
No? Okay, let's begin.
- Game Of Thrones called, and they want their wedding back. Seriously, Disney. I know that GRRM didn't invent the massacre, but God knows he popularized it with his damn TV show. And on that note...
- Holy shit, Disney! GENOCIDE? Are you kidding me? What the fairy-winged fuck of a bad day were you having when you approved that shit in the church? But wait, there's more!
- LET'S DESECRATE A SACRED BURIAL GROUND, DIG THOSE BURIED THERE UP, AND MAKE WEAPONS OF WAR OUT OF THEM SPECIFICALLY DESIGNED TO KILL THE ONES THAT STILL LIVE! (Flails) Seriously, guys?!
- We have to talk about the ending of this film, and the fate of Ingrith. This, a woman who plotted to kill every fae in the moors, who had them all rounded up and has started their mass execution under a flag of truce, a woman to full-knowingly authorized the complete harvest of the Tomb Blooms. Who conspired against Aurora, who tried to kill her several times, who cursed the king by STABBING HIM. Who killed Maleficent and any number of the already endangered Dark Fae. Aaaaand her punishment in the end of the movie is to get turned into a goat and laughed at. No. No, I don't fucking think so. After she's done all of this, you're telling me someone or something doesn't perish her in a horrible fashion? You're telling me that when the Dark Fae corner her in that chamber at the end of it all, they don't shred her in the blink of an eye? That the king doesn't have her executed when he recovers, that none of the soldiers accidentally sticks a spear into her or... no. She gets turned into a fucking goat and laughed at. This is THE biggest problem with this movie. You cannot go to the dark places that this film went to without paying it off at the end.
- I know you had to get paid, Warwick Davis, but come on. Did you even read the script? You're one of the biggest damn loopholes in the whole movie, but we'll get to that.
- Not sure who made the decision to not make Prince Phillip useless, but well done that. That could have gone a bunch of different ways, but Phillip comes off as a legitimately good guy here. Conversely...
- I'm not sure who decided to make Aurora a simpering moron, but it's the 21st century, folks. You can do better.
- Maleficent spends most of the movie in skin-tight clothing, so you clearly have a good idea about how she's proportioned. That's neither here nor there, but is anyone else paying attention to her outfit when she's in the Cave Of Origin? Or rather, to the lack of it? Then there's the fact that She looks like freakin' Tifa Lockhart from Final Fantasy VII! What is that all about?! Let me just make that live for you real quick:
- The king in this movie is a good man, and an idiot. How you not only miss how much of an evil creature your wife is -- hello, her name is Ingrith for pity's sake! -- but you also proceed to miss the mass stockpiling of weapons that your wife is overseeing in the bowels of your castle. Really?
- Can we talk about how much Jenn Murray's face looked in this movie please? She looked like Helena Bonham Carter's Queen Of Hearts!
- Diaval is a treasure. That is all.
- PLOTHOLES ABOUND:
Convenient that the Dark Fae just happened to be in the woods while those guys were stealing the first tomb bloom. Convenient that they just happened to know where Maleficent was and rescue her.
You're telling me that Lickspittle is a fae, was winged, had his wings removed -- probably by a human, natch! -- and ended up serving in the bowels of the castle like a second-rate citizen? ...The fuck? And he's the kind of master alchemist that knows how to make customized death out of a flower that just randomly happens to come back with a random soldier?
Pretty much everything about Ingrith.
Maleficent is clearly the baddest bitch in the world, and yet she lets her curse, a curse that was specifically made and placed on AURORA, somehow bleed over onto a spindle? And doesn't she say that no power on earth can break it? Seriously, check this out:
And yet...the spindle is a key part of the sequel, and doesn't she destroy it, thereby lifting the curse that...no power on earth could...Yeah. Never mind...
Aren't the clouds of death dust sort of unnecessary? What was the point of collecting all of that iron weaponry if you're just going to fall back on the red dust?
...No one was guarding the tomb blooms, the one source of Ultimate Faerie Death(tm) in the entire world?!
Where in the blue fuck did Lickspittle come from? You've got a fae, renowned in this film universe for NOT being sophisticated in the sciences, who is quite the scientist and engineer. A fae that is going out of his way to happily make genocide dust that will affect his entire kind! How do you not tell his story? How do you not get his ass dead as soon as the movie resolves itself for being an utter monster?
Lickspittle specifically tells Ingrith that the process of extracting whatever he needs from the tomb blooms is extremely labor intensive and that he needs a ton of blooms to even consider what Ingrith is asking. Not long after, Ingrith suddenly has enough weaponized death to mount a comprehensive defense of her castle?! I'm sorry, WHAT?!
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