Mark Reviews Movies: MALEFICENT: MISTRESS OF EVIL

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Review by Mark Dujsik | October 17, 2019

The first Maleficent, which reconfigured the story of 1959's Sleeping Beauty in order to see the villain as a misunderstood hero of sorts, possessed some significant narrative issues. Mainly, it had a lot of explaining to do, since revising the moral lesson of a simple fairy tale certainly takes plenty of reconfiguration and justification. With its three prologues, taking up about half of the running time, Maleficent barely had time to flesh out its central story, in which the events of the famous fairy tale are presented from a different perspective.

Now, we have Maleficent: Mistress of Evil, a sequel that seems mostly pointless on the face of it. After all, the first movie covered the extent of the fairy tale and the animated adaptation, so anything that might follow that story's "happily ever after" would be an invention, unrelated to any other version of the tale.

Micah Fitzerman-Blue, Noah Harpster, and Linda Woolverton's screenplay certainly does invent a plot for this additional installment, involving the tension between the worlds of humans and fairies coming to a head. They also, though, have framed it within the structure of the original fairy tale/animated film.

Essentially, this is what happens during the epilogue of the story. If a villain can be more realistically (relatively speaking, of course) seen as a tragic and misunderstood figure, then no "happily ever after" can come as easily as planning a wedding. That raises its own issues. That's not even taking into account that the bride's dark fairy of a godmother, feared by most of the land as a diabolical villain, has to meet the groom's family. Imagine the challenge of trying to figure out where to seat her for the reception.

In a way, this sequel feels a bit freer than its predecessor. There isn't the pressure of sticking close enough to an established narrative that it feels familiar, while also finding logical ways to completely upend the characters and events of that familiar story. As a result, the screenwriters can play with things. They can invent a new conflict. They can introduce new ideas. They, along with director Joachim Rønning, can even lean into the humor of having Maleficent (Angelina Jolie) try to be pleasant with her goddaughter's future in-laws.

This movie also—and thankfully—doesn't encounter the first movie's prologue problem. Everything already has been established.

Aurora (Elle Fanning), the princess who became Maleficent's goddaughter and the Queen of the Moors in the previous story, does receive a marriage proposal from Philip (Harris Dickinson), the loving prince who wasn't quite the romantic hero of the traditional tale (His kiss certainly wasn't enough to do the job of awakening Aurora from her cursed slumber). That means a fancy dinner with Philip's parents, King John (Robert Lindsay) and Queen Ingrith (Michelle Pfeiffer). The king and his son want peace between humankind and the supernatural creatures of the Moors. The queen looks to be biting her tongue whenever that conversation arises.

As that scene progresses, one actually starts to wonder if the filmmakers have decided to change gears from the previous movie, which was a dark and visual effects-heavy spectacle—and from the recent, general trend of such big-budget fantasy movies, which seem to worry more about big battles than actually building up to them with characters, story, and creating a convincing world. This dinner scene, although small in scale compared to what we might expect, does establish much about these characters—their hopes and their residual animosity—and the politics of this world. Could the screenwriters actually have decided that a story will take precedence over spectacle?

Well, the dinner ends with a confrontation between Maleficent and the royals, which eventually leads to our eponymous protagonist being shot out of the sky, which leads to her being taken to an underground lair, where the rest of her kind have been hiding since the recent rise of human civilizations in the world. The dark fairies debate going to war, and Ingrith schemes to commit all-out genocide against the supernatural creatures of the Moors.

In other words, no, the filmmakers have not changed paths. In fact, they may have invented a story that's about as generic as this kind of fantasy stuff can be. The story is all about waiting for a final battle. Aurora gradually learns what her future mother-in-law is doing, and Maleficent, weirdly, becomes a passive agent in her own story—just standing by while dark fairies Borra (Ed Skrein) and Conall (Chiwetel Ejiofor) debate between war and peace with humanity. Jolie's presence here is so limited that it feels more like a contractual obligation behind the scenes than an actual character on the screen.

Like the previous movie, there are some intriguing ideas put forth in Maleficent: Mistress of Evil, mostly to do with the notion of using fear as a means of enacting violence against an "other" (The main villain states the thesis during the big battle). The battle itself, which has dark fairies darting through the sky amidst explosions of deadly red powder, is strikingly staged, too. These are ideas and spectacles, though, in search of an actual story.

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