Maleficent Babble

Cuz I saw it and have some thoughts. 

MILD SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS

Having a narrator in a film, in most cases, is a poor use of your medium. Teachers say show not tell and this is so true in movies it HURTS. There are times a narrator works, even times when it adds something amazing and unique. But most of the time it’s laziness, sloppiness, or just an urge to over-share unneeded info that could have been woven in to your visuals or dialogue.

Needless to say, I was not keen on the narration. It added very little and all of it could easily have been entrusted to the actors and editors but wasn’t, which is a shame. I think it was obvious how unnecessary it was and it hurt the whole film.

The visuals were alright, the world was crafted well enough to draw one in. Not much to say other than how much I adored any and all creature design they did for the crow. Horse crow, wolf crow, human crow, stellar design work, A plus.

My wife made the comment that it seemed like halfway through production the studio lost faith in the film and they had to cut a few corners. Apparently it had a very large cut from its original run time, and it’s a bit noticeably thin in several places due to what I assume was them doing their best to “polish a possible turd”. It could even be that the narration was tossed into the final cut to help smooth the amount of cutting it suffered.

I don’t think it was as bad as it looked to me in trailers, but yeah, I can see this one not really being much of a box office smash. Post-Frozen as it is I can see this film is gonna suffer from a lot of people feeling like Frozen already scratched the same Disney princess itch. In terms of theme though, I liked it pretty well, a story about how revenge and greed and ambition can hurt people without being too simplified or oversold, I was pleased. It's great to see a film about how much an obsession with getting back at someone can hurt other people in the process, and even yourself. I feel there were plenty of places in the film where I'd have liked to seen more, like King Stefan's devolving into madness and him talking to her wings. Makes me wonder what was cut. I'm glad we didn't have TOO much of the fairy godmothers UGH. Some comic relief is eye rolls and move on but those three were REALLY grating and the CG effects on their shrunken faces were really unsettling and off looking, really I'd say that was one of the only places where the effects were distracting. Costumes were nice, and oh my goodness Aurora and Phillip ACTUALLY LOOKED 16. It was amazing. Usually characters like that are played by 20 somethings who look like 20 somethings. Aurora's actress was charming as heck too, way cute, you want to hug her. Really great casting choice. The acting in the scene where Maleficent lost her wings was so good. A stand out performance that could have easily been laughable or over the top. Considering how pivotal it was for the movie, it could have easily failed and made the rest of the film's motivations fall flat. But it succeeded, and it did a great job. Overall, nothing stood out to me as incredible, but it was fun and worth a watch of you enjoy this sort of film.