Film Review: Maleficent: Mistress of Evil

Maleficent: Mistress of Evil is a visually appealing film, but is an unnecessary sequel that adds nothing new to pre-existing narratives.

Maleficent: Mistress of Evil is the sequel to Maleficent, a retelling of the Sleeping Beauty story where the villain, Maleficent (Angelina Jolie), is humanized as a maternal figure of Aurora (Elle Fanning). The second installment follows Aurora as the Queen of the Moors and her engagement to Prince Philip (Harris Dickinson). Aurora and Philip hope to reunite the fairy lands and the human world through this union.

However, Philip’s mother, Queen Ingrith (Michelle Pfeiffer) has other plans for the fairy people — Maleficent isn’t the only one of her kind and belongs to a race of fairies that were pushed underground by the humans — which includes a mass fairy genocide and scientific experiments conducted on other fantastical creatures. The film is essentially about environmentalism, massacre, and colonialism — that’s a lot of dark shit for a family film.

The film features numerous characters that are not fully developed and plotlines that cannot be sustained. The first film provided a new and interesting take on Maleficent, while the second one doesn’t know what to do with her. As a result, Maleficent does nothing for most of the film and it’s hastily explained why she’s even necessary. 

Similar to Avatar, there are two races fighting: Ingrith wants to strip the land of its resources, while the fairies want to preserve nature. The fairies are also fashioned after various black, Indigenous, and people of colour communities, which is incredibly tone-deaf. Also, the themes and ideas presented in the film have already been done better in other films — so nothing new. For instance, Ingrith creates a makeshift gas chamber for fairies and fantasy creatures, which was strange, and the scene was almost comical instead of horrifying or depressing. There are better ways of teaching young people about the horrors of a genocide without decorating it with flowers and fairies.

Visually, there are a few good things about Maleficent: Mistress of Evil. The costuming is stunning and the set design is gorgeous as well. Angelina Jolie and Michelle Pfeiffer are wonderful and balance each other out well — they have the most iconic bitchy-mom-faces.

While this is an entertaining film, it’s just not a good film. Mostly, you continue watching out of curiosity. If you can watch a film absentmindedly, then the awful attempt at political allegory in Maleficent: Mistress of Evil wouldn’t bother you and you might like the film.