radulovicka

As a true Disney child, I used to watch Sleeping Beauty over and over again, till I knew all the lines and all the songs by heart. It remains one of my favorite cartoons of all time. Having said that, I had high expectations from Maleficent. I was disappointed. As a prequel to the original story, we were expecting some major alterations to take place, in accordance with contemporary mass Hollywood agenda of lightweight storytelling, resulting in huge summer box office success and even bigger revenues from popcorn sales. Let me start of by saying how plastic-y and CGI-heavy the visuals were. Even by fairytale standards, they were absolutely unrealistic and unconvincing, as was pretty much everything else in the movie. Character development was almost non-existent, despite a few twists which were to be anticipated mere seconds before they were revealed on screen, leaving the atmosphere of utter discontent and ultimately posing a question "Who is supposed to be the target audience?". For example, King Stefan and the three fairy godmothers were so naively and superficially depicted that it almost reached a point of absurd. They were by far the biggest disappointment. Casting Jolie as Maleficent proved to be a good choice from the visual point of view - she is stunning, but her acting wasn't so pleasing. Fanning's Aurora is sweet and innocent and it would've been a delight to have more of her on-screen presence, but only if it was followed by a decent plot. With the original Sleeping Beauty you knew what to expect - it's a cartoon, so it must be for children, right? But even so, the cartoon is still a masterpiece, cleverly and charmingly combining the everyday goofiness of the characters together with the ultimate evil, followed by a classic true love theme, and lastly an amazing soundtrack, making it a joyful experience for viewers of any age. In my opinion, not only does "Maleficent" lack charisma, but is also insecure about its genre, making it an in-between-type-of-movie - not entirely for children nor the adults. I pains me to see that a story with such potential for serious re-interpretation is diluted down to a mediocre and worn out tale of war between good and evil, when in fact it could have been a masterpiece. If only Hollywood would grew a pair...

I could see on the forums, as well as by the overall rating, that this movie got some real hate. Now, Camilla Belle is no Carol Kane, by any means, and she's no Jamie Lee Curtis to be able to carry out almost an entire movie by herself, but she's not that bad. This version does differ from the original, especially in the last third of the film. Now, if you saw the original - then you know the major spoiler, the one thing that made the original really scary in the first place. And I agree with some of the reviewers that this is a cliché, but since it is rated PG- 13, I would strongly recommend this to younger viewers who are just entering the amazing world of horror movies. It's contemporary and modern and therefore more relate-able to the younger audience. What disappointed me the most were two things. First, even though Camilla Belle is okay, she lacks that true horror-heroine-quality that could've made this movie into a real gem. Decisions her character made in the movie were believable, and in some cases logical, but her acting was just not convincing enough. Second, they really played it safe and by doing so, stripped the movie of its original horror. The line "Have you checked the children?" kind of lost its meaning here by not correlating to the "stranger's" motives in the original plot, but I don't want to give anything away to those who haven't seen the original. So, I'm a bit disappointed because this could've been a really serious re-imagining of a classic, worthy to stand by its own. However, since this is not the case, watch it anyway, 'cause it's fun, but do see the original because it's scary.