Review: 'Maleficent: Mistress Of Evil' Resembles The Offspring Of An Unholy Union Between 'Gargoyles,' 'Aquaman' And 'Avatar'

Maleficent: Mistress of Evil is a breath of fresh air from Walt Disney's sub-genre of live-action fairy tale adaptations. It is noticeably better than the previous Maleficent (which was allegedly stitched together via an assist from John E. Hancock) and the very best of these Disney fairy tales since the one-two-three punch of Cinderella (excellent), The Jungle Book (damn good) and Pete's Dragon (spectacular). Okay, we'll ignore Alice Through the Looking Glass for a moment, but you get the idea. The plot is almost as threadbare as the first one, but it makes A-to-B-to-C logic and exists as an excuse for a fantastical spectacle, some dynamite action and not a little camp melodrama. At its best, it's a go-for-broke adventure that that avoids the mistakes that tripped up the last handful of Disney fairy tales.

Directed by Joachim Rønning, and written by Linda Woolverton, Micah Fitzerman-Blue and Noah Harpster, Mistress of Evil offers specific pleasures new to the franchise and thus feels organic and narratively justified. Sure, the whole "What happens after happily ever after" pitch is straight out of Shrek 2, as is the first act's extended "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner" set-piece which sees Maleficent forced to dine with Phillips parents. But it's a fun set up and allows Jolie and Pfeiffer to snipe at each other, which is half of why you bought the ticket in the first place. Alas, the dinner goes badly, with Shrek 2 morphing into Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country, forcing Maleficent to flee while Queen Ingrith seems to be using the wedding to strike at the heart of an already fragile peace.

The film treats Ingrith's duplicity as every bit as surprising as the makers of Angel Has Fallen treated the "Shocker... Danny Huston is a bad guy." reveal. While we don't get the full breadth of what she's up to until late in the game, the movie makes no effort to hide a painfully obvious reveal. Once Maleficent takes off, she finds herself in a fantastical world populated by creatures not unlike herself. There's some arbitrary worldbuilding an exposition, but this is all an excuse for the movie to go full- How to Train Your Dragon 2-meets- Avatar, and I mean that as a compliment. Much of Mistress of Evil seems like a contingency plan for the theme parks in case Avatar 2 bombs. Just wave your magic wand, shout bibbidi bobbidi boo and, poof, "World of Pandora" becomes "Maleficent-Ville."

The second act is something of a waiting game, and they even blow a pretty clear opening for Jolie and Pfeiffer to reenact the coffee shop scene from Heat. That said, the visuals are great, and it's worth it for the third act. What you get is less "conventional Walt Disney battle scene" and more a ridiculously violent (but bloodless) mass battle scene that feels like a "What if Gargoyles had bed-breaking unprotected sex with Avatar?" blow out. The film is technically about how a racist human hatches a scheme to massacre a bunch of fairy tale creatures, and wow, the movie has a body count that earns that PG. I don't want to be the troll who says Maleficent: Mistress of Evil's action finale is better than the climax of Avengers: Endgame, but...

The cast does what they must amid the spectacle, although Jolie and Pfeiffer are special effects all by themselves. The production design has a clarity and coherence that was missing from the first film, as does the overall story. Oh, and as an example of how unapologetically over-the-top it goes, Mistress of Evil features Jenn Murray as a (I think) silent assassin/enforcer who is both conventionally "bad-ass" and gets one extended musical beat every bit as absurd as Mad Max: Fury Road's Doof Warrior. You're damn right I mean that as a compliment. The entire movie, but especially the third act, feels like Disney got high and storyboarded the movie while binge-watching The Battle of the Five Armies, Aquaman and Avatar. It's not as good as those films' action sequence, but you get the idea.

More so than any of these films since Pete's Dragon, Maleficent: Mistress of Evil feels like Disney using the safety of a viable IP, or at least the protection of knowing that they will survive if this movie bombs, to just throw caution and fidelity to the wind. There's a bare minimum of (to paraphrase Lindsey Ellis) "girl boss faux feminism," attempts to "correct" the politically incorrect attitudes/ideologies of the original material or obsessive recreation of what came before to "appease the fans." It's a self-correction that brings (false?) hope to the next batch of presumably less slavishly faithful Disney adaptations coming down the pike. Maleficent: Mistress of Evil is the Disney remake/fairy tale as kid-friendly heavy metal madness. It may not be a masterpiece of music, but it rocks and rocks hard.