I don’t want to fairy-tale-reimagining-sequel you guys out, but the truth is right after I watched THE HUNTSMAN: WINTER’S WAR I decided it was a good time to knock out MALEFICENT: MISTRESS OF EVIL too. I almost didn’t want to post about it, because there is no dignity in being a “not all Disney live action remakes are bad” person, but the truth is I remembered liking the first MALEFICENT when it came out in 2014, so I always meant to see the sequel.
I suppose there’s a distinction that it wasn’t a straight remake of SLEEPING BEAUTY, but a WICKED-inspired revisionist spin-off where it turns out those jerks got the iconic villainess all wrong, she’s another woman who got screwed over and demonized and she’s actually pretty cool if you get to know her. As crazy as it may sound I remember it being structured like a rape-revenge movie, with Maleficent’s prince cutting off her wings as the violation to be avenged. (Yes, in live action she has wings. Also horns. I always thought that was just a weird hat.)
Well, now Maleficent has her origin, the king is dead, the beauty is awake, and I’m kind of surprised how much mileage they get out of “what’s next?” After the not-your-mother’s-Snow-White of THE HUNTSMAN it’s nice to see some yes-this-is-like-the-old-Disney-movies enthusiasm for bright colors, fanciful creatures and shit. There’s more of that in the opening ten minutes of MISTRESS OF EVIL than in all of THE HUNTSMAN. After a prologue about people in the woods at night trying to capture a toadstool-headed fairy (Fantasyland truffle hunters), we’re reintroduced to Aurora (Elle Fanning, SOMEWHERE), now “Queen of the Moors,” convening a meeting of all the magical pixies, talking animals and walking trees of the forest.
When I first heard about PRIDE & PREJUDICE & ZOMBIES – the book where Seth Grahame-Smith inserted the undead into Jane Austen’s original text – it sounded like a clever public domain art project, something I could respect without wanting to actually read it. When I heard that they were making it into a movie it sounded like kind of a bad idea, but since David O. Russell was doing it I thought maybe it would be interesting. By the time Russell left and it was finally made by 17 AGAIN director Burr Steers I had written it off.
