Maleficent, or I went to see a girl movie

Alright, this is a girl movie right out of the tank. However, they really tried to get some boy interest.

I know the gist of the Sleeping Beauty story: girl,curse,faeries, spinning wheel, sleep, thorns,dragon prince kiss and there goes the tale. This movie is a crazy spin that gets to bottom of the coolest looking female (The Horned King being the coolest male villain) Disney villain's back story.

The story here is that Maleficent is this faerie that gets the shaft and wants revenge. Why? Well Wikus van de Merwe from District 9 took her wings to become king. Yeah who knew Maleficent had wings? Maleficent goes all curse crazy on the new princess crazy and there we have it. Well not really. There is a big change from the original Sleeping Beauty tale. We get a villain who we feel sorry for, like and want to win. There is also this redemption/revenge story going on too. It sometimes comes off a bit jumbled.

Why the hell did I go see this? Well simple. The commercials have a battle between soldiers and forest tree monsters. If there is one thing this guys likes, it is battle sequence and monsters. There is also a dragon in the movie and I'm a sucker for those too. Third, well my special lady wanted to see it and I've drug her to everything I want to see. It is only fair I go see something that interests her.

Speaking of the battle, it was short and most of the scenes were shown in the trailers. That was a little disheartening. However, it was still pretty cool looking having a forest army smashing stuff. It had a very Hordes feel with forest constructs being controlled by a crazy sorceress. If anyone at Privateer Press has seen this movie, please cannibalize some of this stuff. The rock constructs are cool, but a giant tree snake monster is much cooler! Plus a winged Circle warlock would be sweet too! Hell, even her crow/man minion was great. Every transformation retained some bird-like feature (some feathers and a bit beaky). It was a great idea and look.

The film for me was a real push. There were scenes that were really grim for a PG film, these were good. Then there was the light hearted happy that you expect in a PG Disney film, those were pretty bleh! for me. It was a strange balance of these two. I didn't hate it mostly due to the fantasy elements and the Jolie. 

She really nailed the look of the angry black clad green magic wielding villain. It didn't have the same feel of the fantasy movies I remember from my youth, but it really tries. A not terrible fantasy movie (with a great non-Hordes yet Hordes battle sequence) based on a pretty cool looking Disney villain. You should take the kids and maybe imprint this on them to grow another generation of fantasy nerds/geeks/dorks!