Maleficent (2014)

In 1959’s “Sleeping Beauty,” Disney wasn’t going to tell you a story about how it’s the King’s fault that Maleficent is sick with rage and looking for revenge - it was an era where it was much easier to just say “She wears all black and is evil for the sake of being evil” and not worrying about sinking any amount of effort into character development.

In 2014’s “Maleficent,” despite her name, we find out that she’s good. In fact, she’s the unofficial leader/protector of “The Moor,” the magical land on the other side of a ‘wall’ where all the magic stuff is, opposite a place where all the regular people are.
A boy comes through, finds love (with Maleficent), and never returns.
Then, years later, as the human king is dying in bed with his sons surrounding him, he poses a challenge that whomever can bring the head of Maleficent to him will be the next king.
Up until this point, this plot line  bears a striking resemblance to one of my all-time favorite movies, “Stardust” (2007), which replaces ‘head’ with ‘ruby’ and the dying king is already in the magical land of Stormhold. So many of the scenes in “Maleficent” were clearly borrowed that I can’t help but wonder if Disney was somehow mad they didn’t get to make “Stardust” themselves.

Lore and legend often have some kind of kryptonite for the villains: wooden stakes for vampires, silver bullets for werewolves, etc. One that doesn’t get brought up a lot is that iron can kill a faerie. This is probably because modern pop-culture likes to portray faeries as good, no doubt thanks to “Sleeping Beauty,” where the three faeries were charged with keeping Aurora alive. The ‘reality’ of fairy tales is that faeries were not good - they were often impish and trouble-causing, which is why iron needed to be used against them.
Speaking of which: Maleficent isn’t a witch. She’s some kind of faerie. 
The blue/pink/yellow beings that took Aurora away were also faeries, but at one point in the movie they’re referred to as ‘pixies,’ so I wonder if someone in the writers’ room was attempting to separate their cryptid species list. The fact that iron can hurt faeries is brought up once at the beginning as a blatant Chekov’s Gun, though repeatedly used throughout the film to make it feel a bit less on the nose. It was a notable addition to the original story, and was used often enough that it didn’t simply feel like a ham-fisted macguffin during the final act.

Angelina Jolie played the titular Maleficent and did so incredibly well. She was able to carry a British accent the entire time and the prop department did a good job with her extra-sharp cheekbones and ears and horns, so while they were clearly not natural for a human, at least they looked like they fit within the magical realm from whence she came.

Sharlto Copley played King Stephan, who we all remember as the ‘good king’ from the 1959 movie. Turns out Stephan stole Maleficent’s heart (figurative), then cut off her wings (literal), which is what caused Maleficent’s transition from a ‘good faerie’ of the Moor to the rage-filled, curse-spewing villain we’re familiar with. Copley also took up the mantle of “normal man who goes bat-shit crazy” that you’ll recognize from his major film debut in “District 9” (2009).

As a side note: a quick trip to Wikipedia revealed that the original version of “Sleeping Beauty” is by the Italian author Giambattista Basile, from his book “The Tale of Tales” in 1634, so it’s weird that every single accent in this movie is some version of British-isles English. But it’s Disney, I’m not sure they’re aware that other accents exist.

The first third of the movie is about Maleficent and her transition from ‘loving everything’ to ‘hating anything outside the magic realm,’ which includes her cursing baby Aurora during the public viewing. The middle third is Maleficent watching Aurora grow up. While the original cartoon showed the caregiver faeries as derpy but otherwise capable of keeping an infant alive, this version shows the faeries as deadly incompetent and unable to care for the baby in any way. Maleficent steps in, in the shadows, and does small things to keep Aurora alive, which slowly transforms into a loving relationship where Aurora thinks Maleficent is her godmother and unofficial caretaker.
Through this transition, you can see Maleficent’s hatred melting away. It’s clear in Jolie’s facial expressions that Maleficent isn’t a being of pure rage, but one of love who was betrayed and hurt and is slowly opening her heart again. She develops a motherly love for Aurora, to the point where ‘true love’s kiss’ isn’t the kiss from Prince Phillip, but a kiss on the forehead of the sleep-cursed Aurora, from Maleficent, who has learned how to truly love another person, and the sacrifices and heartache that come with.
“Frozen” (2013) got all sorts of credit for using the “true love don’t need no man” plot device, but I think “Maleficent” (2014) did it much better.

There was a new character in this movie, Diaval the raven (Sam Riley), whom Maleficent saved from being beaten by a farmer, then transformed into a man. Maleficent and Diaval had many quippy conversations, and they’re trimmed just right as to be funny, instead of going on for too long and becoming annoying - a problem that I’ve pointed out many times in other movies. 
Kudos to whomever edited those parts of the script from letting it go too far.

The scenery in this movie was acceptable. Scenes from the Moor were bright and colorful and very heavily CGI’d. Some parts looked great, others… not so much. The care-giver faeries spent a large chunk of the movie in the Uncanny Valley, so that was just uncomfortable to see. A few scenes at night in the Moor were also clearly inspired from the heavily luminescent scenes from “Avatar” (2009).

And the soundtrack was perfect. Absolutely gorgeous. It was exactly the kind of music that comes to mind when you tell me that a movie is a ‘fantasy’ story. If you could cross the soundtracks to the “Final Fantasy” video games with those of “Avatar” and “Stardust,” this is what you’d get.

The one thing that I still don’t understand: why did spinning-wheels have needles on them?

I was expecting this movie to be bad. I don’t generally see ‘prequels’ or ‘from the other side’ stories as a good thing, as often they get bogged down with too many easter eggs that the creative teams seem to think are essential, while not critical to telling the story.
The opening 15 minutes had me concerned too.
But the longer I watched it, the more I liked it. 

I saw this on my 15” laptop with stereo headphones.
This is one of the few movies that I am planning on re-watching, as I definitely want to see it again much bigger screen with proper surround sound.
I bet it would have been a blast to see in theaters.

If you haven’t seen it already, I highly recommend it.