Hey guys I usually do not get into Disney films at least not since I was a kid and started with Fantasia but something about the Maleficient trailer intrigued me.
So I went to see Maleficient today starring her royal fierceness Angelina Jolie.
Before I get started you know I always have to share my movie pet peeves. Folks who get to the film late and instead of finding a discreet seat on the side want to march and crawl over you to get to prime seats in the middle.
Also what is up with ushers who want to start cleaning while you are still watching the credits? Hey man I paid for this film so enough with the broom!
Rant over back to review.
Maleficient is a cinematic buffet of visual consumption that lay folks and film people will delight in seeing.
I am a fan of Angelina Jolie and unlike other folks I do not demonize her as a man stealing vixen cause really you can't steal a man who does not want to be taken.
Anyway Angelina Jolie gives such depth to the charachter Maleficient who has historically gotten a bad rap as the Mistress of Evil who curses the King's daughter in Sleeping Beauty.
Well the film Maleficient sets the record straight.
Maleficient is really an innocent fairy, one of the strongest of her kind and lives in a very cool fairyland but one day befriends this young boy who grows up to be a very trifling, backstabbling, no account man.
There are two rival kingdoms and the King wants all the resources of the fairyland. Typical greedy monarchies wanting to pillage other lands for their own greed.
Anyway the King attacks and gets a big old can of fairy whoop asshanded to him by Maleficient and some of her woodland posse.
The King wants to be avenged and who steps up but Maleficient's old boo.
This is where we see how old girl got her reputation but they left out the truth.
The trifling ex-boo basically roofies Maleficent and when she wakes up the next day instead of having her virtue compromised her wings have been severed and taken.
This ultimate betrayal justifiably turns Maleficent into a class "A", pissed off, Diva!
From this point on the story aligns itself with the more familiar tale of Sleeping Beauty but we do get to see that Maleficient begins to watch and nurture the growing child and takes on a motherly role in her life.
Who knew Disney could be so dark and edgy but I like this new look.
Maleficient is a very strong female role in that she vascillates between victim, villian and hero.
It is pretty cool to see a film where women do not need a man to save the day. This is all out girl power!
Disney has definitely flipped the script on their own historical formula. This is a great summer film!
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