Malificent fits typical Disney stereotypes

Often when I’m sitting in a theater watching the credits roll and listening to the custodians badgering me to leave so they can clean up before the next show, I sit back and wonder to myself whether the film I just saw really needed to be made. The answer to this question usually plays a large role when I attempt to judge the film’s quality. After all, if a film does not bring anything new to the table, it becomes very difficult to recommend it over one that does. No matter the film’s quality or budget, there is little reason to watch it.

Disney, however, does not seem to fully grasp this concept as they continue along their warpath to squeeze every nickel and dime out of everything they have by producing inferior cash-grab films based on their popular franchises. Following the box office success and critical revulsion to their reimagining of Snow White and the Seven Dwarves, entitled Snow White and the Huntsman, executives at Disney greenlit yet another live-action reimagining of one of their older works when they created Maleficent. Based on the popular villainess of their animated Sleeping Beauty, this film aims to put a new spin on the

The film opens as Maleficent (Angelina Jolie), a beautiful faerie from the Moors, falls in love with a human boy named Stefan (Sharlto Copley). After the king of the human world promises royal succession to whoever kills Maleficent, Stefan betrays the enamored faerie and cuts her wings off so that he may become king. In retaliation, Maleficent creates a dark kingdom in the Moors and delivers unto Stefan’s daughter, Aurora (Elle Fanning), a dreadful curse on her 16th birthday. Stefan quickly sends his daughter away to live with a group of pixies while he takes measures to prevent the curse from coming to pass.

The story itself is relatively straightforward and, by and large, stays faithful to the traditional Sleeping Beauty plotline. The film aims to put a more sympathetic spin on the tale by portraying Maleficent as the victim more so than Aurora.

While interesting in theory, it is ironically this very spin that works against the film. It removes one of the original story’s most defining and popular features, its villainess, and fails to put anything compelling in its place. While Stefan serves as an adequate villain for the purposes of the film, he unfortunately offers little in the way of conflict beyond the events of the prologue. In a film like Maleficent, this tradeoff is unacceptable. It is not new intellectual property, but rather a story that is already known.

What is ironic is that the film completely contradicts its own message and implications. The intention of making a film in with Maleficent, who is commonly deemed as the most evil and irredeemable villainess in Disney lore, as the protagonist is clearly to showcase that there are multiple sides to every individual. Even the most cruel and horrid people have redeeming qualities. In order to showcase this fact, Maleficent offers the villain Stefan, who has no personality traits whatsoever beyond being selfish, greedy, traitorous and, yes, evil.

Instead of the morally gray deconstruction of the fairy tale fans were promised, what is received is simply a role reversal, with less interesting characters and less thought-provoking substance than even the animated musical, which is saying something.

To give credit where it is due, Jolie gives an excellent performance as Maleficent. Her character is extremely well fleshed out, and Jolie is able to capture the essence, pain, love and tragedy of the character with the utmost finesse.

The problem is that the character in question is not Maleficent. While reimaginings are typically intended to alter the source material to a degree, Jolie’s character has been written in such a way as to gut Maleficent of everything which made her memorable. While still evil in the most technical of senses, all of the darkness, malice and cunning of the character has been peeled away and replaced with nothing but the most generic Hollywood interpretation of the “scorned woman” trope. Furthermore, particularly as the film progresses, it becomes clear where the inspiration for her character came from.

I’m sure audiences remember Frozen. It was the most popular Disney film in years, won several awards last year and its title track “Let It Go” has endured endless Youtube iterations over the months. Maleficent essentially took the two main characters, Elsa and Anna, threw them in a blender and renamed the resulting creature Maleficent. Both the overall plot of the film and the titular character follow the Frozen model to a T, but fail to produce the same endearing results. Nothing about the character feels fresh because Maleficent is very clearly attempting to ride on the coattails of Disney’s most popular recent success.

The similarities don’t stop with the character either; the “inspiration,” for lack of a better term, spills right into the central plot about halfway through the film and never goes away.

Despite an excellent performance from Angelina Jolie, Maleficent is utterly crippled by its lack of true substance. It contradicts its own message, replaces interesting characters with lifeless substitutes, and attempts to rip off compelling stories in an attempt to ride off of popular trends. It may not be the worst film of the year; on a technical level, it may even be good. But Maleficent gives little reason for recommendation, and even worse, leaves absolutely no desire to see it again.