I'm late to the party because I'm months behind pop culture due to parenting. But I wanted to give my two cents...

SPOILER AHEAD, yar!

I'm a sucker for fiction that tells traditional stories through different characters. One of my favorite books is Grendel, a retelling of Beowulf from the monster's POV (Beowulf is such a dick). So I'm inherently predisposed to like this kind of movie.

I like that it contradicts the original ending of (Disney's) Sleeping Beauty because that ending makes no goddamned sense. I love the original movie and its one of my favorite Disney films, and Maleficent is my favorite Disney villain, but the last 10 minutes of the movie are ridiculous. This unbeatable super villain turns into a dragon and is then easily defeated by Prince Charming? I never bought it. Even as a little kid. A dragon with the ability to do magic wins that battle, true love or no.

So, this new ending essentially says that story is a lie, but gives a plausible alternative that has all of the same elements. The dragon is defeated by lots of people, and its not Maleficent anyway. Aurora and Philip fall in love over a period of time instead of Once Upon a Dream. And Maleficent wins, like she should, she just has different motivations in this movie.

Also, the three fairies are incompetent in both versions, and I really liked that this film played off of it. That is definitely in the original.

I do have some gripes though. I think the magical creatures are far too willing to go along with Maleficent after she gets her wings cut off because she was fraternizing with the enemy. I mean, who really is going to trust her judgement after that? I would have liked some challenge to her authority she beats back through her exceeding competence.

Also, Aurora forgives Maleficent way too easily. She runs away because Maleficent placed the evil curse on her and then as soon as she wakes up, Aurora's like, no biggee. We're cool now. I did think that was the opening to have Aurora go live with the people, and cause the creation of the legend.

Finally, the wrong person gave her true love's kiss. the only person who loves Aurora unwaveringly and completely throughout the film is Diaval. I thought he would wake her, and then give her up because of his complete devotion to her happiness.

Anyway, I liked the film. Wasn't great, but it was a solid B.

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Posted by Cold Cous Cous

Bucktown, La.

Member since Oct 2003

15054 posts

Posted on 6/27/14 at 3:27 pm to Baloo

quote:
I'm a sucker for fiction that tells traditional stories through different characters. One of my favorite books is Grendel, a retelling of Beowulf from the monster's POV (Beowulf is such a dick). So I'm inherently predisposed to like this kind of movie.

These retellings could be interesting except that they inevitably go like this: "What if [person you assumed was the villain] is actually a hero -- and [person you assumed was a hero] is actually a villain!?!" Grendel, Maleficient, this retelling of the Tempest I once read where Caliban was the main character. Shock value is a thin narrative reed to rest on, and it's kind of cheap because it gets all its emotional oomph from subverting the original source material (ie, if you don't already know the original story it doesn't make sense). Calling it "derivative" might sound silly because it is literally, expressly derivative, but I think it's still a valid criticism.

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