Here is why I don’t hate this movie
I don’t know why people are so upset about this movie.
Just like many other film adaptations before it, Sleeping Beauty was an independent variation of the Brothers Grimm fairy tale that took a lot of liberties, and Maleficent is in turn an independent variation of Sleeping Beauty.
There are, to repeat, numerous film adaptations of the Grimm fairy tale, and no one says “This film destroyed an earlier film” or “This film destroys the characters.”
I’m not a fan of Maleficent because, aside from some great shots, I think it looks like every other fantasy film in the last 20 years: way too much CGI, the usual frantically edited action scenes, the usual soundtrack, and the usual camera movements. Here I agree with Matt Zoller Seitz’s review on the Roger Ebert website, who said:
“its action sequences and ostentatious creature displays are murky CGI soup”
“It has sub-‘Phantom Menace’ landscapes and creatures, a bombastic and unmemorable score, and the sorts of chaotic images and fast cutting that signify a lack of true filmmaking imagination.”
But I like how Maleficent gradually grows fond of Aurora. I also like that they changed the reason for Maleficent’s evilness. In the Grimm fairy tale as well as in the old movie, she is evil because she was not invited to a feast - a very strange reason. In Maleficent she has been given a much more understandable reason.
I also like that they changed Aurora’s character. In the original, she was a vacuous character who thinks of nothing but a man, and even makes a man out of clothes to dance with it. Such characters were interesting and cute in the 1950s, nowadays it seems completely outdated; Disney itself started to make its female characters more modern in the early 90s.
There are also nice details that show that Aurora is not a shallow, silly character in this film. In one scene, she asks Maleficent for her wings, to which Maleficent replies, “They were stolen from me. That's all I wish to say about it.” However, instead of ignoring this wish and still asking her about it, Aurora respects Maleficent’s wish and asks a question on a different topic.
It was equally ridiculous that a prince who doesn’t know Aurora at all is capable of a “true love’s kiss”. That too may have been a romantic notion in the past, but nowadays it seems strange as well. Maleficent, on the other hand, has known Aurora since she was little and has developed motherly feelings for her throughout the plot. (This is not to say that the film hates men or claims that the prince is incapable of loving anyone, but just as Ariel in The Little Mermaid shouts “I love him!” about Eric after seeing him once briefly, it would be odd here that a brief small talk would be enough for a “true love’s kiss.” Personally, I think it’s more interesting to see Aurora befriend Maleficent and talk to her than to hear her constantly talk about men or getting married. share