Maleficent

The 2014 retelling of Sleeping Beauty, Maleficent, brought new depths to the villainous character Maleficent. By giving her a truly heart wrenching motive to become “the bad guy,” Maleficent becomes so much more believable than previous versions of the Sleeping Beauty tale.

The film also excelled at the lesson of “true love.” This movie does a great job of keeping you on the edge of your seat up to the end about how “true love” plays out in this story. I was worried they were going to disappoint like Snow White and the Huntsman. But where the retelling of Snow White failed to capture our hearts, Maleficent succeeded.. It was heartfelt and real.

My only real complaint about the film itself was the opening and closing narrations. From a writing standpoint, narrations are viewed as something to be avoided wherever possible. Although in this case I felt compelled to forgive it.

The visual displays during the narration were so vivid, clear, and enchanting, it made you want to forget the omnipresent voice in your head. Being a visually stunning film helped ease my annoyance at the taboo. I still felt the pull distracting me, but made a conscious decision to forgive it, because if you can't use “once upon a time...” in a fairy tale, where can you? They may have chosen to use narration to set the tone and remind the viewers of the classic stories while they take you on a whole new adventure.

While the critics had a very even mix of feelings on the film, audiences tended to be a bit more forgiving with a 72% positive rating on Rotten Tomatoes. On Netflix, I'd give the movie three stars. This is a movie I'd add my collection. It's great for kids and adults who want more dynamic villains in their fairy tales.