MALEFICENT, MISTRESS OF EVIL (2019)

REVIEW BY: ROBERT CHANDLER

A review of MALEFICENT, MISTRESS OF EVIL in the form of notes and questions.

Praise the film for being entertaining and moving along at a pace; for importing the spirit of GAME OF THRONES into its battle scenes; and for depicting an inner world full of winged daemons (Maleficent's kind) that evokes the similar world hidden from the humans in the recent HOW TO TRAIN YOUR DRAGON 3 and wonder if this all goes back to Arthur Conan Doyle's THE LOST WORLD being somehow an Eden, a hidden world on Earth untainted by the corruption of man.

Refer to the title as highlighting a trend in Disney films in that not only is "evil" no longer portrayed with a deep, true, darkness, but neither are villains allowed to die nor be killed at the end.

Compare to the original killing of Maleficent in SLEEPING BEAUTY (1959) where Prince Philip throws his sword into the Maleficent dragon's heart; or the staking by the ship's broken, sharpened foremast of Giant Ursula in THE LITTLE MERMAID (1992); or the mauling to death by Hyenas in THE LION KING (1995).

Discuss how fairy tales used to deal in absolutes in order to discourage children from wandering far from home and teach them the differences between good and evil; and how Disney, when it raided those fairy tales for stories, kept the absolutes with their purified notions of good and evil.

Refer perhaps to a sea-change coming, ahead of 1959's Sleeping Beauty, in CINDERELLA, 1950, where the evil in the film is only human, ie the shallow stupidity of the ugly step-sisters and the controlling power of the bitter step-mother. In other words, not a dark mystical, fantasy villain with horns and wings but corrupt and corrosive human beings. Say how Cinderella is my favourite Disney film, partly for this reason.

Refer to Newt in ALIENS (1986) being rescued by Ripley. Newt tells Ripley her mother told her there were no "monsters", but Newt has seen them. In other words, the Cinderella story would have been no good for Newt, but Sleeping Beauty and SNOW WHITE, with their absolute portrayals of evil, would have been.

Look at how Disney's two recent, live-action, MALEFICENT films have rewritten the story to show Maleficent, like the delinquents in GEE, OFFICER KRUPKE, as simply misunderstood. She is not evil but has her own moral compass, her own beliefs and values, her own need for love and companionship. She is not human but, of course, she is more than human, she is noble, because the true villain of MISTRESS OF EVIL is the human queen, played by Michelle Pfeiffer. Pfeiffer is the one full of vinegar and fear; the white queen who wants to destroy all the non-human creatures, including Maleficent and her kind, and all the forest cuties because they are not like her.

Wonder where it all leaves Disney. 

Have they undone their fairy tale heritage of absolutes by taking away the notion of evil? 

Or ask if the drive to explain the "bad guy" (a notion explored by George Lucas in his STAR WARS 1-3 where he used the films to show how a boy could grow up to be Hitler, ie Anakin could become Darth) represents a maturity of outlook, a desire to see beyond the Cartesian simplicity of good/evil to discover the complexities and deeper failings of humanity.

Has Disney grown up?

Or was Newt right all along?