Massive Jolie Love & Maleficent Review

Which Hollywood actress has featured in FHM’s Hot 100 list every single year from 2002?

Too wide a bracket? Okay, well try this...

Green eyes, cheek bones and lips. Trademarks of her beauty. 

With explosive and controversial Gia in 1998, followed by the earth-shatteringly hot silver wetsuit in the Tomb Raider movies (from 2001) the world suddenly woke up to the goddess that is Angelina Jolie. 

Understandably, those of us with our noses in the tabloids may have some problems with her somewhat questionable behaviours; knives in the bedroom, kissing her brother and of course that little Jennifer Aniston hiccup – but all of those things rolled together don’t diminish the sheer talent that the California born-and-bred Actress has seeping from every pore. 

In news more recently for her breast cancer preventative double mastectomy and her humanitarian rights work, the award winning hottie is still turning out the blockbusters. Having won three Golden Globe awards, two Screen Actors Guild awards and one Academy Award; she, along with Leonardo DiCaprio, stands as one of my favourite actors to have never won an Oscar. 

                                   

Playing Evelyn Salt in the 2010 movie SALT, Jolie throws back to her Tomb Raider days with her bad ass female leads – on playing Salt, she said she didn’t want the girly roles anymore; “Bring me Bond, bring me the female Bourne.”  2011 saw Jolie produce, write and cast her first movie. In The Land Of Blood & Honey, her directorial debut, provoked mixed reviews but with casting actors only from former Yugoslavia, most of whom lived through the Bosnian war, she maintained her realism and captivatingly concise storyline.

I gush, I know. What I’m really here to talk about is the 2014 movie Maleficent. The new take on Sleeping Beauty stars Elle Fanning as Aurora (Sleeping Beauty), Angelina Jolie as Maleficent whilst Sharlto Copley and Imelda Staunton also have roles.
Billed by Walt Disney Pictures as a dark fantasy adventure movie which was coincidentally originally meant to be directed by Tim Burton. Is does look very Tim Burton doesn’t it? 

                             

Joe Roth, producer of Maleficent, told the press that the film would not have been made if Jolie had turned down the titular role – “She seemed like the only person who could play the part. There was no point in making the movie if it wasn’t her.” Now, I can’t imagine anyone else playing this role; she has the face for this role and if she didn’t, she was determined to make it work – Jolie’s personal make up artist Tony G and Maleficent’s special-effects make-up artist Rick Baker spoke to Allure Magazine in reference to Jolie’s penchant for Maleficent Prosthetics.

Rick Baker said “Because it was Angie [playing the role] and she’s so spectacular-looking, I thought it should be her own face. I drew up an idea on Photoshop with the horns and pointy ears, showed it to Angie, and she said she wanted more. ‘I’m playing a creature’ she said, ‘...and it should be a creature.’” And apparently same went for the eyes – horizontal pupils on contact lenses that were based on goat’s eyes. “That’s also something Angie wanted. It’s funny, usually I’m the one pushing for prosthetics and weirdness, and it was kind of the reverse on this film...” 

It’s so unbelievably refreshing to see/hear/read about an Actress getting so involved in a character but also to see her actively trying to be, not ugly, but less attractive. Although, I must admit (and you’ve probably gathered) it would take an awful lot to make Angelina Jolie less enchantingly beautiful.

             

 

 

And of course, we can’t not talk about Lana Del Rey’s cover of Once Upon A Dream in the first trailer for Maleficent. This childhood sing-along song has become hauntingly beautiful whilst at the same time scaring me a little bit silly. 

AAAH! Anyway, I understand that this has become a Jolie appreciation post – I know I have digressed... onto the actual point.  

I saw Maleficent yesterday at our local Everyman cinema, in Winchester. Everyman is a cute little chain of cinemas – a little indie, a little artsy. Everyman shows maybe three or films at a time rather than Vue or Odeon showing EVERY FILM POSSIBLE! There were only seven other people in our screening, but that’s probably because everyone else went on opening weekend – Maleficent made four times what X-Men made when they both opened last weekend. Now that’s saying something. $70 million worth of something. 

One profound, for me, thing about this movie was it’s correlation with the original. The scene in Sleeping Beauty when Maleficent arrives at Aurora’s christening is so well matched; similar, yet not identical which worked really well. The constant use of Maleficent’s silhouette was ethereal and magical and completely not overused, as I’m sure some people may think.

The main reason I loved this movie so much is because in the original Maleficent seems to curse poor baby Aurora merely because she wasn’t invited to join the royalty at the christening; Maleficent the movie rights that exaggeration. 

[SPOILER ALERT] To become King, Stefan drugs Maleficent and rips off her huge-eagle wings. He presents them to, then, King Henry who dies and makes Stefan king as his successor. King Stefan had used his relationship with Maleficent to thrust himself onto the throne; breaking her heart and dashing her beliefs in ‘true love’s kiss’ all at the same time. Spurned by her first love and devastated at the loss of her all-powerful wings, Maleficent hears the news of King Stefan’s new baby and attends the christening to deliver her curse on unsuspecting Aurora. 

The effects were impressive, as was Vivienne Jolie-Pitt’s acting as Youngest Aurora – apparently she had Mommy and Daddy running after her on the set, and she only got the role because she was the only child not scared of Jolie in her Maleficent get-up. Young Maleficent and Young Stefan form a young and beautiful friendship; happy and as carefree as anyone is at that age – which is why it’s so heartbreaking when Stefan returns to Maleficent later on to betray her love. 

Overall, I liked it a lot. The 3D wasn’t massively necessary but it worked in the Fairy Moors really well and [SPOILER ALERT] when Diaval (Sam Riley) turns from a crow into a dragon in King Stefan’s castle. And my oh my, King Stefan (Sharlto Copley) – whatta bastard! I though The Queen (whose name I can’t find on IMDB) would have more of a role, but apparently not. Come to think of it, I don’t think she was a main feature in the original Disney Sleeping Beauty. And of course, a scene I missed sorely from the 2014 Disney masterpiece was the Fairies that Aurora had been entrusted to arguing over what colour her sixteenth birthday dress should be – it should be pink! No, blue!