“Maleficent:
Mistress of Evil” directed by the Norwegian director Joachim Rønning is the
sequel to the first Maleficent film from 2014. Five years have passed since
then and was it worth the wait? Personally, I don’t think so.
I had my hopes up
when I went to the cinema to watch this 119 minutes long sequel, because I had
really liked the Moors with all its magic creatures in the first film, I had
liked how Maleficent was both the villain and the hero and I had especially
liked the feministic twist concerning the true love’s kiss that woke up the
sleeping beauty Aurora, Unfortunately, “Maleficent: Mistress of Evil” does not
live up to its predecessor but remains a typical disappointing sequel. Most of
the story takes place outside the Moor and as for feminism… it is more or less
non-existent.
From the very
beginning, it is evident that former feministic ideas have been abandoned, as
things are back to the way they were before sleeping beauty woke up. Once again
Maleficent (Angelina Jolie) is feared and hated by everyone except for her sidekick
Diaval (Sam Riley) and her ever so sweet and ever so lovely - and pink - god
daughter, Princess Aurora (Elle Fanning).
The princess, who
is now the queen of the Moors, is still in love with Prince Philip of Ulstead (Harris
Dickinson), although he has changed a bit as he used to be played by Brenton
Thwaites. Aurora seems to welcome this, as the two of them plan to get married,
something that Maleficent strongly objects to. However, she agrees to attend a
dinner party hosted by Philip’s parents, King John (Robert Lindsay) and Queen
Ingrith (Michelle Pfeiffer), but the queen is out to kill Maleficent as she
hates the Moor fairy folk.
Maleficent must
flee as she is accused of putting a curse on the king who is now the male
version of Sleeping Beauty, but there is no true love’s kiss to awaking him as
the queen doesn’t love him. Escaping from the castle, Maleficent is rescued by
the Dark Fae Conall (Chiwetel Ejiofor) who takes her to an underground cavern.
Here she finds out that she herself is a Dark Fae and that others like her and
Conall have been forced to hide and nearly driven extinct by human oppression.
Furthermore, Maleficent is the last descendant of the ancient and powerful Dark
Fae Phoenix, whose remains she sees. They look a lot more like the skeleton of
a pterodactyl than of the mythic bird that is reborn
from ashes. In any case, it is a huge hint of what is going to happen to
Maleficent later in the film!
With Maleficent as
their secret weapon, the Dark Faes led by the aggressive Borra (Ed Skrein) now
plan an attack on the humans on the wedding day of Aurora and Phillip while
Queen Ingrith plans to kill all the Moor fairy folk who have come to attend the
weeding.
I don’t think that
any of the actors in “Maleficent: Mistress of Evil” comes across as remarkable
except for perhaps Jenn Murray as Queen Ingrith’s helper Gerda, as she plays
the part with overdramatic gestures and pathos. As for the plot, it is very
predictable and so is the ending. And as said before, the feministic message
from the first film is totally gone from the second, which I am far from the
first film critic to notice. Sure, all the main roles are played by women, but
in a “reversed” universe, where women act as men usually do in film and where
the men have the traditional female roles of someone who must be rescued or
won. This is not feminism, it is just reversed gender roles and besides, the
strong, independent Maleficent is back to being a hated female, whereas the
pink goody-two-shoed Aurora is the type of female that is shown love, and of
course the biggest thing a girl can ever aspire to is once again to be married.
To a man. It’s not good enough, Disney! Three out of five stars: ***
