MALEFICENT: MISTRESS OF EVIL
It would be wrong to call “Maleficent: Mistress of Evil” a long-awaited sequel. Nobody was waiting for it.
Its 2014 predecessor, a feminist spinoff of “Sleeping Beauty,” was merely adequate. At least Angelina Jolie was a hoot as the complex villain Maleficent (yes, she curses a newborn baby, but she has her reasons!).
In “Mistress of Evil,” directed by Joachim Rønning, everything is a notch less fun. While the first film was, like “Wicked,” an alternate view of a classic good-versus-evil tale, its sequel is a one-note, moralistic sledgehammer with no payoff.
Now the fully awake Aurora (Elle Fanning) is queen of the Moors, the woodland enclave where the magic folk live. She’s betrothed to Prince Philip (Harris Dickinson), and, with the royal wedding looming, takes Maleficent, her guardian, to meet his royal parents. Like with any modern family, the dinner conversation gets weird, as Philip’s mom, Queen Ingrith (Michelle Pfeiffer), reveals her anti-Moor prejudices. A fight ensues, causing the king to fall into a coma and Maleficent to be presumed dead. Good times are had by none.
In her first live-action role since 2015, Jolie is just as regal and snarky as she was the first time around, and hers is the only character who gets a decent joke. But again, and for God knows what reason, she’s barely in it, with most of the story handed to Fanning’s distraught Aurora. Nothing against the emotive young actress, but it’s hard to outshine a sorceress with horns and cheekbones that could slice a rib-eye.
I’m relieved Disney is still making the occasional movie that isn’t a frame-by-frame re-creation of a classic cartoon. But even so, if the “Maleficent” filmmakers plan on belaboring this story any more, they need to come out of their own creative deep sleep.
Running time: 118 minutes. Rated PG (intense sequences of fantasy action/violence; brief scary images). Now playing. —Johnny Oleksinski