Maleficent
Dir: Robert Stromberg
2014
**
It's a sad day in the world of Cinema when Disney are making films based on Disney films. The opening to the film even says something along the lines of "You think you may know the story but..." which I found particularly annoying as most people now think that most Fairy tales were either written by Uncle Walt and/or that his version is the same as the original version. If we don't know the real story then it is in fact mainly thanks to years Disney rewrites. However, this isn't the work of the Brother Grimm, just another complete re-write of their original story, the character of Maleficent is a Disney product and so the bastardisation goes on. Robert Stromberg is a very talented special effects guy, however, talented special effects guy doesn't always make talented director and this is an example of that. Watching Maleficent is like being smashed in the face with a CGI hammer. The special effects are hugely overdone, when less would have been more. The CGI overpowers the film so much that by the big visual grand finale the viewer is left less impressed then they otherwise would have been. The character of Maleficent isn't particularly well written either, the transformation from good to bad is feeble and as good an actor as Angelina Jolie is, I don't think there was much here for her to get her teeth into. Overall it is a bit of a mess with few redeeming features.