Can we all just take a moment to acknowledge how weird it is
that a film like Maleficent even
exists? Seriously. Disney, one of the
most stringent companies when it comes to their image and the fairy tale charm
of their properties, produced a film that not only revises the history and
backstory of Sleeping Beauty, one of
their keystone stories, but also portrays Maleficent as a tortured
anti-hero. Even on paper this sounds
insane. After all, Maleficent is
practically Disney lore’s equivalent to Satan, being evil just to be evil, and
that’s what has made her such an eternal character; she was designed to scare
the shit out of you. And now we have a
film that portrays her as the good guy?
It’s a hard pill to swallow, but here we are.
The film starts off by telling you that
everything you think you know about the tale of Sleeping Beauty is a lie.
The first film is essentially a piece of anti-Maleficent propaganda, and
this is the real history as it should be told.
Maleficent is a winged fairy in a magical forest kingdom sharing a
border with a human kingdom. She meets a young man named Stefan, and the two grow close and develop feelings for
one another. Fast forward a few years
later, and an overzealous king seeking to invade the fairy kingdom offers his
throne to anyone who can kill the fairy queen, who just happens to be
Maleficent. Stefan returns to the fairy
kingdom, drugs Maleficent, and cuts off her wings while she sleeps. He then becomes king, and a broken,
grief-stricken Maleficent vows revenge.
The rest of the film recounts the supposed true events of
the Sleeping Beauty story, following
Maleficent’s character arc from revenge-driven villainess to sympathetic mother
figure. If that last sentence gives you
pause, it should, because it really makes the whole film fall apart. See, Maleficent for some reason decides to
watch over the young Aurora as she grows up, presumably to make sure she
survives long enough to have the sleeping curse take hold over her. Throughout this process, Maleficent begins to
develop maternal feelings for the child, essentially becoming her “fairy
godmother.” This has the effect of
gradually sapping away any sense of fun that the film ultimately has. The best moments are when Angelina Jolie
shows off just how evil Maleficent is or just how tortured Maleficent feels,
but as the maternal instinct takes her over, the film becomes a bland
by-the-numbers redemption story.
I was intrigued by the concept of Maleficent, but I didn’t think it would be something that Disney
would be willing to follow through with. And I was right. It would be fine if Disney wanted to tell a dark tale from the
perspective of one of their iconic villains, but it almost seems like the
film’s producers started to get just that and decided to back-pedal into more
comfortable and conventional territory.
Instead, this reimagining ends up feeling like a half-hearted attempt at
making us sympathetic to what was originally a deliciously evil monster, and
that’s something that nobody was asking for.
Don’t bother with this one.
Partially due to the commercial success of Maleficent,
Disney has commissioned live-action reimaginings of Cinderella and The Jungle
Book, as well as an Alice In
Wonderland sequel. Share your
thoughts in the comments below.
I wanted to see the Evil!Maleficent promised by the trailer, but got distracted by how hot Diaval was and forgot to dislike the film I watched.
ReplyDeleteI think what Disney actually made here was Frozen Lite, which is at least a good thing in one way. The fact that the "evil old woman" trope exists to be refuted is kind of sad, but eh, there you are. Some other company will have to make Lilith: the movie.
http://ipinionsyndicate.com/the-secret-history-of-maleficent-murder-rape-and-woman-hating-in-sleeping-beauty/