Maleficent! Now watched!
So it's been an age and a half since I last posted here D: But, I feel it's fitting that my last post was about how excited I was about Maleficent, and now this one's after I just watched it :D If you follow me on tumblr, it's mostly a repeat, but LJ is much more fun to discuss on.
Non-spoilery opinion: Had a blast, Angelina is perfect (<333), the movie was visually gorgeous and the wardrobe/makeup was fantastic, the plot was unexpected in a good way, the dude playing Maleficent’s magic raven is great and Elle Fanning is adorable.
Very spoilery opinions under cut:
Angelina was freaking awesome, and I’m not just saying that because I could watch her face forever, she was actually wonderful with the evilness/tragedy/humor/sweetness. To be honest, I think if they did something like this with a villain like, say Loki, I’d be really annoyed, but because Maleficent is a Disney villain who mostly just did one hugely bad thing, I could roll with the super, super sympathetic “she wasn’t really a villain, it was other people’s fault” thing. They did have her go evil with rage and then realize she couldn’t undo her own bad decision even when she wanted to, which I thought was a nice touch in order to not make it all about how she got screwed by someone else’s greed. Making her someone who wanted happiness in her life even when she turned bad and finding it in Aurora was a really cool twist that i did not expect and was very happy with because of all the humor that came with it early on, and the feelings that came with it later.
Everything positive I said is true and I more than got my money’s worth, but oh man, the writing is so poor in parts, especially highlighted by the fact that some bits were really lovely. Some of the humor was great, there were some little nuances in both writing and acting (Angelinaaa <3) that were wonderful but there was also quite a bit of wooden acting from some of the supporting cast and some really bland and incompetent writing choices that probably helped make some of the supporting cast so flat. Bizarre plot loopholes and awkward pauses and a big action sequence that I was mostly bored by because the big bad was so flat and uninteresting :/ The relationship between Maleficent and Stefan was really badly done, so that even though i felt sympathy for Maleficent’s feelings of betrayal and rage, I never even got why she felt like she ever really loved or trusted him.
In conclusion, I’ve gotta say though, I am all for the many versions of true love being not between dude and dudette who just met three hours ago, but instead being about family love or otherwise deep feelings of love that isn’t about romance. I love romantic sap, but there’s also so much of it in almost all stories that true love being recast as between daughter-mother, sisters, found family is something I’m totally for. Also totally all for a movie that focuses so heavily on relationships between women and the complexities of what a main female lead is feeling instead of a guy. The movie had a bunch of issues, but I thought the pros outweighed those cons because I left it feeling happy and satisfied. I don’t want to go watch the whole thing again, but I wish there was a way to get snippets of it that I could rewatch, because they were so good.
So, have any of you seen the movie? Thoughts?
I'm on summer break from my grad school classes now, so even though I'm still working full time, it feels like I have so much free time on my hand. I read a bunch of books and am visiting people right and left. Thank goodness for classes, because really, there's no way you could enjoy break as much if you didn't have things to take a break from!
Non-spoilery opinion: Had a blast, Angelina is perfect (<333), the movie was visually gorgeous and the wardrobe/makeup was fantastic, the plot was unexpected in a good way, the dude playing Maleficent’s magic raven is great and Elle Fanning is adorable.
Very spoilery opinions under cut:
Angelina was freaking awesome, and I’m not just saying that because I could watch her face forever, she was actually wonderful with the evilness/tragedy/humor/sweetness. To be honest, I think if they did something like this with a villain like, say Loki, I’d be really annoyed, but because Maleficent is a Disney villain who mostly just did one hugely bad thing, I could roll with the super, super sympathetic “she wasn’t really a villain, it was other people’s fault” thing. They did have her go evil with rage and then realize she couldn’t undo her own bad decision even when she wanted to, which I thought was a nice touch in order to not make it all about how she got screwed by someone else’s greed. Making her someone who wanted happiness in her life even when she turned bad and finding it in Aurora was a really cool twist that i did not expect and was very happy with because of all the humor that came with it early on, and the feelings that came with it later.
Everything positive I said is true and I more than got my money’s worth, but oh man, the writing is so poor in parts, especially highlighted by the fact that some bits were really lovely. Some of the humor was great, there were some little nuances in both writing and acting (Angelinaaa <3) that were wonderful but there was also quite a bit of wooden acting from some of the supporting cast and some really bland and incompetent writing choices that probably helped make some of the supporting cast so flat. Bizarre plot loopholes and awkward pauses and a big action sequence that I was mostly bored by because the big bad was so flat and uninteresting :/ The relationship between Maleficent and Stefan was really badly done, so that even though i felt sympathy for Maleficent’s feelings of betrayal and rage, I never even got why she felt like she ever really loved or trusted him.
In conclusion, I’ve gotta say though, I am all for the many versions of true love being not between dude and dudette who just met three hours ago, but instead being about family love or otherwise deep feelings of love that isn’t about romance. I love romantic sap, but there’s also so much of it in almost all stories that true love being recast as between daughter-mother, sisters, found family is something I’m totally for. Also totally all for a movie that focuses so heavily on relationships between women and the complexities of what a main female lead is feeling instead of a guy. The movie had a bunch of issues, but I thought the pros outweighed those cons because I left it feeling happy and satisfied. I don’t want to go watch the whole thing again, but I wish there was a way to get snippets of it that I could rewatch, because they were so good.
So, have any of you seen the movie? Thoughts?
I'm on summer break from my grad school classes now, so even though I'm still working full time, it feels like I have so much free time on my hand. I read a bunch of books and am visiting people right and left. Thank goodness for classes, because really, there's no way you could enjoy break as much if you didn't have things to take a break from!