Maleficent: Mistress Of Evil
Picking up from the 2014 film, Aurora (Elle Fanning) is the Queen of the Moors, which means she romps around barefoot with flowers in her hair. The human Prince Philip (Harris Dickinson) proposes to her, which Maleficent (Angelina Jolie) finds abhorrent, as she's never trusted humans. And she has a good reason to be, as we soon find out that Philip's mother (Michelle Pfeiffer) is plotting a trap to kill all the fairies and take over the Moors for their natural resources.
Jolie also finds out she's one of a race of fairies, called the Dark Fey, who have been exiled to a cave, but have her style of horns and wings. There is one fey (Ed Skrein) who wants to go to war with the humans, and another (Chiwetel Ejiofor) who wants peace. This struggle between war and peace permeates the film, but in a trite manner. Though there is a lot of violence, very few characters actually die, which I suppose is because it's a children's film.
The whole project seems misguided from the beginning. I expect few viewers of the first film felt there was anything more to say, and there isn't. It's sometimes cool when Jolie unleashes her magic, but the theme of racial harmony is simplistic--Pfeiffer would seem to represent white people, and the Fey people of color. We get a conclusion that in less than fifteen minutes goes from war to a wedding.
And the film is also dark in a literal sense, as there are several nighttime scenes that make it hard to see what's going on. I appreciate that it's night, and it is supposed to be dark, but the photography could have handled so we could at least have an idea of what the action is.
The film just about broke even, which probably spells the end of this mini-franchise, and it's all for the best.
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