Maleficent: Mistress of Evil (2019)
Directed by Joachim Rønning
Maleficent and her goddaughter Aurora begin to question the complex family ties that bind them as they are pulled in different directions by impending nuptials, unexpected allies, and dark new forces at play.
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Michelle Pfeiffer puts a venomous twist on her line readings as the duplicitous and quite simply awful Queen Ingrith, and the great Warwick Davis from “Willow” and “Return of the Jedi” is the fantastically named Lickspittle, who is a kind of mad scientist for Queen Ingrith.
Maleficent: Mistress of Evil, directed by Joachim Rønning (who, with Espen Sandberg, previously co-directed the 2012 historical adventure Kon-Tiki and the 2017 Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales) , hands over several important messages on a blackened silver plate: Be yourself.
But chances are they won’t know what’s going on anyway, given the clumsy staging of Norwegian director Joachim Rønning, who co-directed Kon-Tiki and Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales and seems to have left the heavy lifting to production and costume designers.
That messy blockbuster found Rønning and co-director Espen Sandberg making an ill-advised descent into studio-mandated storytelling following their Oscar-nominated Norwegian adventure “Kon-Tiki,” which looks downright quaint compared to the sheer scale of the playground here.
El cineasta noruego Joachim Rønning ( Kon-Tiki , 2012; Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales , 2017) asume las tareas de dirección de la secuela, a partir de un guion de Linda Woolverton, Noah Harpster y Micah Fitzerman-Blue, que intenta expandir el universo del cuento de Disney con una destacada conjunción entre acción y fantasía, Visualmente impresionante, el filme logra un esplendor de cuento de hadas: las flores brillan, los árboles caminan y las hadas de todas las formas, tamaños y colores vuelan.
This sequel, Maleficent: Mistress of Evil , sees Joachim Ronning ( Kon-Tiki , 2012 and Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales , 2017) replace director Stromberg.
Norwegian director Joachim Ronning, now split from his creative partner Espen Sandberg, with whom he made Kon-Tiki and Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales, pushes the mandatory buttons to achieve the desired results, nothing more or less.
Sure, it's still fun to see Pfeiffer in devious mode with some clear Stardust echoes, but it feels like a missed opportunity.
Pfeiffer’s doing her best with a ridiculous role (for a sense of the missed potential, compare with the vain sorceress she played in “Stardust”), and Fanning gets to be a bit more proactive than previous princesses, but the story’s still a mess, and the world itself — buildings, costumes and creature-filled environments alike — amounts to an overworked eyesore, much too detailed for the brain to register, let alone take pleasure in discovering.
Fanning struggles to make her character memorable while Pfeiffer is on cruise-control, especially compared to her role in Stardust (2007).
Returning writer Linda Woolverton ( Mulan , The Lion King , Alice in Wonderland ) has a better grasp of fairytale mechanics than anyone else in the business.
The script, led by Disney’s favourite in-house writer, Linda Woolverton (the first Maleficent, Beauty and the Beast , The Lion King , Mulan , Alice in Wonderland ) hits the familiar notes – a beautiful princess, a handsome prince, meddling old folks, various other anthropomorphized creatures and a trio of chipper fairies who flit about.