‘Maleficent’ is visually impressive and Angelina Jolie is perfect as the lead, but the film does not quite live up to the classic source material it is based on.

‘Maleficent’ is a retelling of the fable ‘Sleeping Beauty’ with the focus put on villain Maleficent (Angelina Jolie). Originally Maleficent is a fairy thrust into war as her land or fantastical beings known as The Moor is threatened by humanity. After defeating the king, she is betrayed by her human love, Stefan (Sharlto Copley), who burns her wings off. Soon, she begins building a dark kingdom in the world of fairies but returns to the human kingdom to get revenge on Stefan by cursing his newborn daughter Aurora (Elle Fanning) with a sleeping curse that will activate on her 16th birthday.

First off, Angelina Jolie was perfect as Maleficent.  Maleficent is a villain that begs to be overacted, yet Jolie does a great job portraying the classic character with a lower key performance that really works in the film. There are still moments where she goes a little over the top, but overall Jolie does her best work through subtlety and body language throughout most of the film. Elle Fanning was also impressive as Aurora, but Jolie is the real reason to see ‘Maleficent.’

I really enjoyed the films visuals, but there are times where I felt all of the visual wonder was partly wasted on such a light film. The design struck a good balance between ‘Alice in Wonderland’ and ‘Lord of the Rings’ for the fairy and human worlds, but the story didn’t really use the visuals to a great degree. The few action scenes are good, but It’s hard not to think how much better they would be if the film was allowed to go into the darker parts of Maleficent’s story.

Although I enjoyed ‘Maleficent’, I was expecting a better movie as a whole. Angelina Jolie did a great job as the lead, but the story didn’t seem to be able to fully embrace her villainous ways and as a result the film is much sweeter than the trailers led me to expect. The film is good, but I feel it could have been so much better if the would have taken some chances.

3 out of 5 Stars