By ALAN SWERDLOW
Maleficent / Directed by Robert Stromberg / PG
What is this current obsession with revisiting comic book and cartoon figures from the past? There is something vaguely recidivist about the notion, or, at the very least, egoistically critical of past efforts : you didn’t get that right, let us show you how it should really be done. We’ve had endless reboots of franchise material when the original stopped being a cash-cow, and then there is another more insidious revisionism that is cloaked in all sorts of good intentions. Disney more or less kick-started the whole thing by trying to reconfigure their heroines as spunkier, sparkier, more (heaven help us) empowered. Then there was the allied “reinterpretation”, particularly when it came to villains – hey, they’re not really bad, they’re just misunderstood!
We’ve had a good decade and a half of back-stories, prequels and spin-offs. The more cynical side of my nature sees little revitalisation of familiar tropes but rather an attempt at squeezing a few more greenbacks out of something long considered dry and barren.
The latest offering in the catalogue is Maleficent, striding like a tetchy Joan Collins into battle with previously held Disney tenets. In fact, Angelina Jolie’s prosthetically enhanced cheekbones resemble Collins’s shoulder pads and are designed to wreak as much havoc. But that comes later.
First we have the story of happy faerie folk and magical creatures (including mudslinging humanoid frogs – ah cute!- who are there to evoke all the mudslinging poor Maleficent has had to endure since the release of the Disney animated Sleeping Beauty in 1959. Well, what other point do they serve?), living a tra-la existence on The Moors adjacent to a vaguely medieval human land. Maleficent is sorta-kinda the protector of the Moors and is lovable and kind. Actually, she’s awfully like an enthusiastic girl-guide trying help aged unicorns across streams. She encounters a young human trying to pilfer jewels from a magical pool (yes, it is that kind of story), forms a romantic attachment to him and we have the obligatory shots of the budding juvenile romance culminating in “love’s true kiss” or similar, maybe he was administering mouth-to-mouth resuscitation or having the life force drained from him…I couldn’t really tell.
Young Stefan grows up to be Sharlto Copley (there’s a fate worse than something – maybe having to watch all the films in which Sharlto Copley has delivered the identical performance), so, of course, he betrays her cruelly and becomes king.
That’s when the narrative begins to follow the outlines of the familiar Sleeping Beauty tale, and hews closer to the Disney original. Angelina Jolie has entered the scene now, and her appearance is modelled quite closely on the Maleficent of the animation, down to the Morticia Addams gown. Jolie spits and snarls and pays homage to Meryl in the Devil Wears Prada, and croons, and smiles, and even conjures up some tender looks for Aurora, whom she tries to teach to become a modern woman like her.
Sharlto Copley retreats to a gloomy tower and an accent that uncertainly speed tours the whole of Scotland including the Hebrides and Braamfontein. When did a Scottish burr become the go-to accent for villainy? It seems to be all too prevalent nowadays.
Oh, and the three irritating, incompetent fairies who raise Aurora are unfortunately included here and are extremely irritating and incompetent even though they include Imelda Staunton (a comedienne of no mean skill). Here the failure can be blamed on the script, which, though ascribed to Linda Woolverton – who did excellent things with Beauty and the Beast – seems to have gone the way of committee and had many intrusive hands reducing it to incoherence.
The rest of the blame can be laid at the feet of director Robert Stromberg (a highly regarded art director making his debut here in helming a movie). While the CGI visuals are impressive and decorative, Stromberg seems to have no clue about the dynamic of each scene, or any sense of rhythm or pace. He certainly doesn’t seem to have any real affinity with his cast, or an ability to guide their performances, so they all do their own thing, with an almost total lack of coherence as each is operating within their own style and in very different movies. As to whom the film is aimed at, I can’t say. It lacks wit for the adults, engagement for teens, and is way too intense for littlies.
Maleficent is a great, sprawling mess containing a very few sparks of originality and an awful lot of ash. Among the many missteps are such treasures as the most pointless use of a handsome prince in any fairytale ever (Brenton Thwaites who seems to be searching for the other members of his boy-band rather than a sleeping princess), as well as a battle scene that is both arbitrary and boring.
And let us not forget that Aurora’s hundred years sleep is here little more than a very quick power-nap. She may emerge refreshed, but the audience is by then so enervated they can’t even go in search of a caffeine shot.
