Movie Review: Maleficent

Photo from Forbes.com

So I'm a little busy doing laundry and making funeral potatoes for our LDS Living recipe contest, but on Saturday I went to my first drive-in movie and saw Maleficent.

But before I review the film, I wanted to mention the ambiance. I'd never been to a drive-in theater before. It was...an experience. Definitely something everyone should do at least once.

But I would never make it my standard method for watching new movies. I was really glad that I’d already seen How to Train Your Dragon 2, because I really couldn’t see it very well. We were parked in the second-to-last row, and my eyes hurt at the end of the night from straining to see the screen (it was much smaller than I expected!).

The sound was great, coming from the three cars my group of friends had brought, but I felt bad for my friends who couldn’t see all the beautiful detail of the movie. (It still made them cry, but I know they’ll love it so much more when they see it on a big screen for the first time).

It was fun in a social way, don’t get me wrong. We all either sat in the beds of trucks or else out in lawn chairs. Much easier to interact with each other that way.

Unfortunately, I’m the kind of person who doesn’t like to interact during movies.

It wasn’t bad during How to Train Your Dragon 2 (because I’d already seen it), but during Maleficent (it was a double-feature) it was really distracting to have friends show up late and ask us to tell them what they’d missed. There were kids running around everywhere--a lot of them crying at the top of their lungs--and cars would randomly leave, shining their headlights right in our faces. Plus there were people smoking the whole time, so that was gross.

Photo from detroitdriving.com

What I found very interesting about the place, though, is that there were flocks of seagulls there that have become nocturnal! The second movie ended at like 1:30am, and once all the cars revved up and headed out, hordes of seagulls came swooping down through the dark to find all the food we’d left behind.

It was bizarre. I thought they must be owls at first. It’s just something you don’t see every day. Funny how nature adapts to survive. Those seagulls have probably become completely dependent on their nighttime feasts. So interesting!

Anyways. Maleficent. I couldn’t see the details of the movie very well because we were so far away, but I liked it for the most part. I can see why it got lukewarm ratings, and I decided it’s because as a story, it’s great. As a movie, not so much. I would have loved to read it as a book--to get the characters’ inner dialogue and such.

But as a movie, it was just so fast. I didn’t feel connected to the characters, and their motives were so unclear. I understand why Maleficent went bad (it was actually worse than I’d expected--my friends were all saying it wasn’t bad enough to turn her evil), but why did she go bad against fellow fairies? I don’t get that. Hate humans for what they did, sure. But what did your own people ever do but admire and follow you?

Photo from hypable.com

*spoilers in the next paragraph*

Plus I thought it was sad how they ultimately preached that there’s no such thing as true love unless it’s between women who have become good friends. Just because Maleficent’s first kiss wasn’t “true love,” and Aurora’s wasn’t love yet either (they did just meet like a day before and he was kind of coerced into it), that doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist! I was hoping the true love’s kiss would come from the crow guy or something. He demonstrated more selflessness and more concern and fondness for Aurora than Maleficent ever did (in the beginning, at least). To just conclude that men are useless was kind of offensive to me. And I’m a woman!

*end spoilers* 

Anyways, I’d really like it as a book. I hope it did come from a book so I can find it and see if it’s any good. If not, oh well. It was a fun watch, but I won’t go see it again.

I know people who just loved it as the best thing since sliced bread, and have seen it five times already, but I definitely didn’t get that vibe. It wasn’t anything super groundbreaking, aside from the feminism, which has been so frequent lately that it’s nothing new, either.

I, for one, have no problem with the original Disney tales. And the fact that they’re redoing Cinderella too is worrying me. How are they gonna spin that to make Cinderella a feminist? Are they gonna do this with every Disney princess except Pocahontas, Mulan, Merida, and Elsa? Are people so ashamed of the Disney princesses I grew up admiring that we’re calling do-overs on all of them?

This is a still from the new Cinderella movie apparently. Photo from disney.wikia.com

Whatever. As long as it remains a good story, I’ll be fine with a redo. The problem is that they haven’t been very good so far. Snow White and the Huntsman was a flop. So was Alice in Wonderland. And Maleficent didn’t do great either.

Here’s hoping that Cinderella does better. And The Jungle Book. And Cruella (good luck finding a noble motive for her!). And Beauty and the Beast.

But really, when it comes to Beauty and the Beast I just want to scream. Don’t ruin my childhood, please!

(P.S. I'm not making any of those up. They really are making all those movies in the near future. Follow the links if you don't believe me.)