DISNEY PRESENTS ANGELINA JOLIE AS MALEFICENT

year: 2014 rating: **

Humans suck, fairies rule, and once you give a curse, you can’t take it back again…

Those are a few important things learned from Disney’s dark adaptation of SLEEPING BEAUTY where the title character MALEFICENT, played by Angelina Jolie, stalks the daughter of her former love, a wicked ruler who stole her wings, turning Maleficent into the type of woodsy antagonist that should make children shudder only now, in a vehicle geared mostly for teens, the nefarious curse-giving wench is not only sympathetic, she's a new form of superhero.

The Cartoon

Jolie looks perfect in the role, but her transition from victim to villain leaves little time for the actress to savor an already established character's lusciously sinister malice, something Jolie seems born to embrace with delightful venom...

But once Aurora, the King’s daughter, hidden away and protected by three clumsy fairies, grows into a docile Elle Fanning, Maleficent has already become a passive caretaker. With only days before falling into an inevitable and possibly eternal coma, scenes where the vulnerable princess wanders through the murky forest aren't very suspenseful or interesting...

Until things get shaken up with a twist on the "true love kiss" and the conjuring of a noisy dragon. But for the most part, MALEFICENT feels like being read a bedtime story well after you've fallen... sound... asleep...