Angelina Jolie and a Ballsy Theme Help "Maleficent" Play Up

Angelina Jolie acts opposite her daughter Vivienne in Maleficent.

It would be easy to pre-judge Maleficent as just another piece of junk on the increasingly growing list of live-action cash-ins adapted from animated classics. I did that myself when the film came out, but I recently caught up with it on DVD, and while I can't say I think Maleficent entirely works, I was pleasantly surprised by how ballsy an adaptation it turned out to be.

Growing up, I always thought Sleeping Beauty, its villain especially, was dumb. The idea of the villain cursing a princess to an impending deep sleep because she was mad she didn't get invited to the girls christening just seemed lame. The creators of Maleficent seem to have realized this, as they've altered the story to make the title character's decision to curse an infant far more understandable.

Here, Maleficent (Angelina Jolie) is originally a kind fairy whose actions are motivated by revenge against the girl's father Stefan (Sharlto Copley), a former love interest who, in his power-hungry quest to ascend to the throne, drugs her and cuts off her wings to garner favor with a dying king looking to name an heir. When Princess Aurora (Vivienne Jolie-Pitt as a child, Elle Fanning as a teen) is left in the hands of three bumbling fairies, Maleficent begins to covertly care for the girl as a sort of fairy godmother, coming to regret her curse and yet seemingly powerless to stop it.

Despite this being a Disney film, the wing-cutting plays like a metaphor for rape, a fact that Jolie herself commented on in a BBC interview, saying it was a story about "how the abused then have a choice of abusing others or overcoming and remaining loving, open people."

That's some heavy stuff for a kids' movie, and while I certainly question if it’s appropriate, that aspect of the film works pretty well due to the conviction of Jolie's performance. Although this is clearly a money gig for her, Jolie brings her A-game and single-handedly elevates the movie. The woman is a phenomenal actress, and she’s more than capable of bringing nuance on cue, but there’s something about the playful wit she has on screen that registers especially well here.

Sticking with positive attributes, I did enjoy the twist the film puts on the traditional fairy tale ending, even if it was lifted straight out of Frozen. There’s also brevity to the film that definitely bodes well – Maleficent is the rare film in this genre that doesn’t overstay its welcome. However, that is sort of a double-edged sword – there’s a whole lot of telling and not much showing.

All that being said, I have one big issue with the film, and that is how severely it sucks the magic right out of this classic fairy tale. A lot of that starts with character. While Maleficent is fleshed out nicely and Aurora fairs ok (even if she’s basically a pleasant plot device), almost every other character suffers in this translation. This interpretation of Stefan is a disaster, and as much as I’ve liked him in other things, Copley doesn’t deliver here. I’m not sure how much of that is his fault – there’s no dimension to the role – but he’s far too important to the story to feel so blah.

Meanwhile, the concept of giving Maleficent’s raven sidekick occasional human form is interesting but ultimately very awkwardly handled. And then there’s the fairies – the totally tone deaf fairies. These three were a treasured part of the the Disney animated classic, but here they are an annoying afterthought.

Outside of some flourishes by Jolie, there’s just no fun to any of this, and fairy tales, especially ones marketed to kids the way this film has been, should be fun. There's still a lot to like here thematically, but Maleficent is not as fleshed out as it needs to be, and there's ultimately a sense of ambition overreaching grasp. B-

Blomkamp Comes Back Down to Earth With "Elysium"

Elysium finds Matt Damon in badass mode. 

District 9 was a real shot of adrenaline when it hit theaters back in 2009. In an era in which so many blockbuster types are sequels, remakes or so derivative that they might as well be, here was a complicated, raw and original piece of science fiction.

Like many films of the genre, it was a full-on political allegory, and it attacked societal tendencies of xenophobia and social segregation in a way that was intellectually stimulating, pulse-poundingly thrilling and emotionally affecting. The film used a cinema verite mockumentary style to deliver its atypically personal and rough-edged story, but it still managed to deliver impressively large-scale special effects.

In short, it was one of the best films of that year, and really, one of the greatest science fiction films I’ve come across.

Because of this, I was anxiously anticipating Elysium, the sophomore outing from writer/director Neill Blomkamp, who once again teams with actor Sharlto Copley for an original science fiction film. With Matt Damon, Jodie Foster, and an increased budget in tow, expectations were undoubtedly high.

So, it’s with a great deal of disappointment that I write that Elysium is about as ho-hum as it gets. It’s visually stimulating and Copley makes some interesting choices with his batty bad guy, but the action’s not all that memorable and the narrative is a passably clichéd effort.

With this, District 9 and 2015's Chappie, Copley and Blomkamp
are clearly keen collaborators.

The film is another Occupy Movement parable. Earth’s wealthiest inhabitants have moved to Elysium, a utopian space station in which all sicknesses can be cured by med-bays that seem right out of Prometheus. The rest of society remains on Earth, which has become an overpopulated slum policed by oppressive robot forces.

Damon stars as Max Decker, an ex-con who works on an assembly line creating police robots just like Douglas Quaid did in Total Recall. His long-term dream of visiting Elysium becomes a vital necessity when he is exposed to lethal radiation on the job, and his effort to get to Elysium and into a med-bay leads him to join forces with some anarchic smugglers. They fit him with a powered exoskeleton and promise him a ride to Elysium if he can boost a sort of access card to the space station from the brain of one of its citizens working on Earth.

In doing this, Max stumbles into possession of a program that can override Elysium’s defenses, drawing the attention of Elysium’s power hungry secretary of defense (Foster) and her homicidal goon (Copley). Thrown into the mix is Max’s childhood friend (Alice Braga) whose daughter has terminal leukemia.

Throughout all of this, the plot relies on a mounting number of coincidences. The worst of all is Max’s insistence that the smugglers go after the guy whose brain just so happens to hold the key to overthrowing Elysium simply because he’s mad at him for owning the plant where he was exposed to radiation.

Worse than that, the story doesn't give viewers anybody worth caring about. Damon does what he can, but Max’s character arc is a telegraphed string of clichés with an endpoint that isn't really earned.

Blomkamp’s take on the divide between the haves and have nots is not nearly as moving or gripping as his exploration of apartheid in District 9. If that’s an unfair standard, I’ll go a step or two lower and confirm it’s not even as good as Oblivion, 2013’s other derivative “original” science fiction entry (reviewed here).

Still, it is superior to the similarly themed In Time (which I reviewed last year), and the space station is neatly realized.  Ultimately, it functions as an OK palate cleanser as we await the next big thing from a filmmaker with clear talent to burn. C+