Movie Review: Maleficent

The retelling of fairy tales has always had a particular interest for me, whether as viewer, player, reader, or even attempting to try my hand at writer.  I've long been a fan of Bill Willingham's Fables, and before that the Snow White, Blood Red series, edited by Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling.

So, a little burned from Disney's last attempt "Oz the Great and Powerful", my family decided to give the 2014 film Maleficent a try.

To begin, the movie looks amazing, the effects are great , the imagery is wonderful, and it visually ties in quite nicely with the 1959 Disney film.  The story works from the point of view of the "evil" fairy Maleficent, who in the original story is the one who curses Beauty to die on the day of her sixteenth birthday.

Stories told from the villains point of view are always tricky; how, in their back story, can you show the audience the reasons behind their dark deeds, and hopefully win their sympathy?  In Maleficent, they (mild spoiler) do this by introducing Sleeping Beauty's father as a character years before the events of the fairy tale.  This works really well, but does ad a certain darkness to the film that moves the intended audience up by quite a few years from that of the Disney Classic.

In the end, both of my kids loved the film, and my wife and I were cautiously optimistic about it.  It's not my favourite villain retelling of a fairy tale, for that you'd need to read Neil Gaiman's Snow, Glass, Apples but it was a pretty great show nonetheless.

Things I've Noticed: The Snow White Debate

For those of us looking forward to the various fantasy films coming out this year, there is an interesting couple of films featuring a similar premise involving a young lady with hair as black as night, lips as red as blood and skin as white as snow.

In the next month both Mirror Mirror and Snow White and the Huntsman will be entering theatres showcasing the classic fairy tale, but with different twists – Mirror Mirror looks at a comedic angle and Snow White and the Huntsman appears to be very Grimm indeed (sorry for the obvious pun, but I think there’s a law that I have to use it when reviewing dark fantasy). This pairing of similar films has happened in the past (notably with disaster films like Dante’s Peak and Volcano, and Science Fiction films like Armageddon and Deep Impact), what is interesting however is that this year also introduced Snow White and her evil Stepmother as characters on television in ABCs Once Upon a Time and even as a featured character (although dead) in Castle.

So with all these Snow Whites running around, I started to ask myself who the best ones were. Did Disney’s 1937 classic win out due to its classic status? How about the various Snow Whites in fiction?

For me, I’d have to say my favourite Snow White is the character portrayed in Bill Willingham’s Fables. Hands down she is one of the coolest characters I’ve read in comics for quite a long time, and I suppose the Snow White character in Neil Gaiman’s Snow, Glass, Apples runs a very close second (although she is definitely not like any of the others).

In the end I probably won’t see either of the upcoming Snow White films in theatres unless there are extraordinary circumstances involved (kids, friends, or family wanting me to go), but I’ll probably check both out on DVD.

For me, the next big fantasy film I’m looking forward to is Dark Shadows.