Maleficent Review

When Disney released a picture of Angelina Jolie in costume to promote the upcoming Maleficent (2014) movie, everyone went bonkers over it! It was a simple close-up that showcased the Disney villain's iconic headgear and face. I admit even I was instantly psyched to see it. But a movie starring a villain sounded like a gutsy move for Disney. It had potential to screw up a classic character, or to be dynamic and interesting. Incidentally, it did neither.

A beautiful, pure-hearted, winged young woman, Maleficent (Angelina Jolie), had an idyllic life growing up in a peaceable forest kingdom until one day an invading army threaten the harmony of the land. Maleficent rises to be the land's fiercest protector, but she ultimately suffers a ruthless betrayal - an act that begins to turn her pure heart into stone. Bent on revenge, Maleficent faces a battle with the invading king's successor, King Stefan (Sharlto Copley), and as a result places a curse upon the newborn infant Aurora. Raised by three bumbling pixies (Lesley Manville, Imelda Staunton, & Juno Temple), Aurora (Elle Fanning) is caught in the middle of a seething conflict between the forest kingdom she has grown to love and the human kingdom that holds her legacy. Maleficent realizes that Aurora may hold the key to peace in the land and is forced to take drastic action that will change both worlds forever - and perhaps to Maleficent's true happiness as well.

I constantly hear praise for Maleficent as being a feminist take on the classic fairy tale. I don't think that's the case. Feminism, as I understand it, is the advocacy of women's rights on the grounds of equality. That's a great thing to advocate! But the three main male characters are really awful for different reasons. King Stefan is a power hungry monster who will walk all over anyone to reach his goals; Prince Phillip (Brenton Thwaites) is the most vapid and pointless character in the movie, almost as if he inconveniently wandered on set while the cameras were rolling for two very short scenes; and while Maleficent's shape-shifting crow, Diaval (Sam Riley), has enough spine to voice an opinion once in a while, he's basically a subservient toady. Demonizing or controlling men is not what feminism is about. However, most of the women characters in Maleficent are at least as simple and ridiculous as the men are. Ultimately, I don't think feminism plays a particularly significant role for or against.

Maleficent has a fantastic and even romantic fairy tale vibe. It's some high end fantasy and often feels like a classic fairy tale that I was unfamiliar with. The classic Disney fairy tales usually started out with the camera focusing on a book with a brief narration to introduce the story. In Maleficent, there is a narrator that sounds like a sweet grandmotherly lady reading to us a bedtime story. I liked the narrator at first, but it quickly became evident that the narrator was being overused. The narration delivered a lot of exposition telling us things that the movie should be showing us rather than telling us, and it robbed the characters of development. We're told what Maleficent was doing and shown Jolie in dramatic poses instead of showing her do these things. It weakened the story and the characters by not letting us see the changes these characters are going through.

The major draw for Maleficent was to see Angelina Jolie play Maleficent. She looked amazing! The costume was perfection itself. Her makeup and prosthetics really helped sell this Disney icon. Those cheekbones could cut a person if they weren't careful. Jolie looked, sounded, and acted the part so beautifully, it was almost chilling. As Maleficent tries on this "evil" role as she seeks revenge, she genuinely looks scary! Apparently, Jolie in full costume was so intimidating that they couldn't get young child actors to go near her. The only one unafraid was Vivienne Jolie-Pitt, Angelina's six-year-old daughter, who was used to play young Aurora so that the two characters could be in close proximity. Here's a clip to help illustrate how amazing Jolie is in this role:

The visuals were plentiful and detailed, but they relied heavily on CGI and 3D effects. I'm certain most of the scenes were done in front of a green screen. It lacked heart and made everything feel even more artificial than a fantasy movie already seems. The pixies who resembled the Three Stooges looked awful and were very irritating. I'm sure the garish colors and flashy CGI was used to draw in audiences, but it failed to impress me.

Overall, Maleficent was okay. With only her voice and sense of bearing, Jolie effortlessly makes the notoriously wicked fairy seem real. No one else involved in Maleficent seems to have that magic. It was weird to see this powerful classic Disney villain depicted as a heroine who lapses into villainy. Reconstructing one of the most evil animated characters of all time this way didn't necessarily ruin the iconic Disney character, but it certainly didn't do her any favors. I want to say the story would have been better had it not used preexisting characters and changed their story, but then there would be no real attraction to see this movie. I still think Maleficent is worth seeing, just to see Jolie play this role so incredibly well. This is a good movie to watch as a family, and with a PG rating it's not too scary for young kids. I daresay it's more tame than the original 1959 Sleeping Beauty. It's not good enough for the cost of a theater ticket; it's a renter.

After seeing Maleficent, are you anxious to see the upcoming live-action Cinderella remake? It's set to release in 2015. Comment below and tell me why or why not!

The Pirates! Band of Misfits Movie Review

Stop-motion animation seems to be a dying art. It used to be featured much more frequently; not all of them were targeted towards young audiences. Now we get family friendly films once a blue moon, but even then it seems like the medium is perpetuated primarily by Tim Burton. Nevertheless, we still received a great stop-motion animated film with The Pirates! Band of Misfits (2012).

After years of humiliation and failed attempts to win the coveted Pirate of the Year Award, Pirate Captain (Hugh Grant) and his oddball crew take on the most renowned pirates in the world in a race to pillage the most booty. In their efforts, they cross paths with the lovelorn scientist Charles Darwin (The Doctor David Tennant), who persuades the Captain that the crew’s prized “parrot,” Polly, could be the answer to the untold riches they are searching for. Their adventure takes them to Victorian London where they meet the notorious pirate-hating Queen Victoria (Imelda Staunton). It soon unfolds that Darwin’s motives for helping the crew are not what they seem, and that the Queen has an evil hidden agenda of her own. The Pirate Captain must choose between basking in the glory of being crowned Pirate of the Year, or staying faithful to his trusted crew.

The Pirates! Band of Misfits has an all-star cast. In addition to the names mentioned above, there is also Martin Freeman, Anton Yelchin, Jeremy Pivin, Salma Hayek, Brian Blessed, and Brendan Gleeson. You couldn’t ask for a more diverse array of comical UK actors for this slapstick zany adventure.

The Pirates! was animated by the same stop-motion animation crew that did Chicken Run (2000) and the Wallace and Gromit movie The Curse of the Were-Rabbit (2005). The animation is phenomenal to say the least. The movement is smooth, seamless, and full of intricate subtleties and detail. Similar to Gromit in the Were-Rabbit film, there is also a character with no actual dialogue. Darwin’s “Man-Panzee” is so expressive that you can still tell what is going through the character’s mind without having the character verbalizing it. That just goes to show how well this movie was animated.

Something I thought was annoying in both Chicken Run and Were-Rabbit was the blatant vegetarian and animal rights themes in them. Vegetarianism and animal rights aren’t bad, but those films got rather preachy and beat you over the head with the concepts. The Pirates did not do that, thank goodness. In fact, the pirate crew regularly had “ham night” for dinner. It was not bashing vegetarianism, I’m just glad I wasn’t having a bunch of animal-rights-thumping pirates trying to convince me to eat tofu. That would have been incredibly stupid.

The Pirates! Band of Misfits is full of zany and joyfully silly gags. There are times it feels like an old Loony Tunes cartoon with some distinctive British wit. People are hit with frying pans, causing the frying pan to take on the shape of the person’s face. The face on a painting becomes goofy and distorted after being hit by a cannonball. Skidding tire sounds are made when the pirate ship makes sharp turns. There’s also more trap door gags than you can shake a stick at. I’d hazard a guess that adults who grew up with Loony Tunes will get a bigger kick out of this movie than kids will.

The story is pretty simple and doesn’t stand out as a stellar piece of writing. It feels pretty childish, but I think that’s what makes it so fun. It’s got a Saturday morning cartoon quality to it, but it has lots of gags that will fly over kids’ head and keep adults laughing. It also has simple enough plot for young viewers to understand and enough slapstick to keep them involved. This movie might appeal most to adult viewers who are fans of Monty Python or The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy. Just take it as it is; a silly, slapstick comedy that the whole family will enjoy.

The Pirates! Band of Misfits was certainly a fun movie. I enjoyed it and it kept me laughing throughout. This is a perfect movie for a family movie night. Kids will love it and adults will enjoy it, too. The number of animated characters moving about on the screen at one time was impressive enough; that is very complicated and difficult to achieve in stop-motion animation. But the detail beyond that is incredible to watch. I didn’t quite love it enough to want to buy a copy of it, but I imagine most families with young kids will want a copy of their own.

What is your favorite stop-motion animated film? Comment below and tell me why!