Hello, I'm the Nostalgia Critic. I remember it so you don't have to.
And welcome to the Disney Live Action Remake Month.
Disney likes profitable faces, doesn't it?
Don't get me wrong, some of the most timeless characters have made money for years,
but they also like to focus on what's popular for the moment.
Whether it be Disney Channel Original Movies, DVD sequels, or buying what you thought for a second wasn't theirs,
they finally ask the question, "What if they combine their timeless stories still making money with their search for fads still making money?"
And with less creative effort.
Hey, they had to continue those timeless stories that already made them money.
What if they just told them again?
Now we're cooking!
The Disney live action remakes, for the most part, have turned in a huge profit,
so much so that at the time this video's released, at least 12 other Disney stories are in the process of being remade.
It's like Groundhog Day, except instead of you becoming a better person, the world is becoming continually worse.
And one of their earliest hits was Maleficent.
Starring Angelina Jolie, this was supposed to do for the villain of Sleeping Beauty what Wicked did for the villain of The Wizard of Oz.
Hey, Disney is ripping itself off enough. Why not steal from other sources?
The idea of telling a fairytale from a different point of view is nothing different,
but the advertising for this movie made it look like you were going to be rooting for the bad guy.
Like "Oh, it feels so good to be so bad! Let's root for that anti-hero!"
And seeing as how Maleficent is easily one of Disney's best villains, this could kind of be cool.
What we got is...
"Ow!"
[incoherent yelling]
Not cool.
Is it possible though that just like the lead, this is all a misunderstanding and I should look closer to find something of worth?
Do all crows secretly have a cool, stylin' emo stud muffin inside of them?
Mr. Freeze: "Stay cool, bird boy!"
Let's take a look at Maleficent.
Narrator: "Let us tell an old story anew..."
"and we will see how well you know it."
Well, if you're telling it anew, we can't know it.
The first line is literally a lie!
So, there's a kingdom of people and a kingdom of creatures the Na'vi refuse to eat
as a young Maleficent, shown here as taxidermy owl wings on an American Girl doll,
is one of the kindest and gentlest of all fairies.
I guess they regret calling her Maleficent then.
Knotgrass: "The border guards have discovered--"
Flittle: "Why'd you get to tell her? I want to tell her!"
"No, you told last time so I should tell this time and Thistlewit next time."
Knotgrass: "Fine" Flittle: "Thank you."
I hope you're laughing your ass off at this because there's 20 minutes of this joy sprinkled all throughout the film.
Flittle: "The Border Guards--"
Thistlewit: "The Border Guards have found a human thief at the pool of jewels."
"Sorry."
For what, delivering a bad punchline or looking like a CG Barbie doll's Barbie dolls?
Christ, are those ugly!
They find a farm boy named Stephan,
who stole a jewel from them but Maleficent forces him to give it back.
She walks him back to his kingdom where he reveals his parents are dead.
"My parents are dead."
"Mine too."
"My horns ripped up my mother's insides at birth and then I head-butted my father on the way out.
They agree to form a friendship over the years and even end up loving each other.
She grows up into Angelina Jolie, a fitting choice as she's a mix of beautiful and
"Kinda funny-looking."
But as you'll see, the writing does little to keep her an interesting character.
For several years pass and Stephan was away taking asshole lessons
so he could help the king destroy the fairies because...
What was the reason again?
"Crush them!"
[yelling]
Makes sense.
Maleficent is the protector of her kingdom with her Treebeard army
and heads up, nothing in the film is cooler than this scene.
[dramatic music plays] [yelling and cries of pain]
[loud roaring]
Well, that was great climax in the first fifteen minutes of the film,
set the rest of the flick to:
[click]
Stephan, the crown's personal Scottish Michael Bay,
hears the king say "Whoever kills Maleficent will become the future ruler of the land."
Hey, how is the old M-gal anyway?
Stephan: "Maleficent..."
[dramatic music]
[sighs]
He finds he can't actually kill her but he decides to cut off her wings as proof.
Good thing Maleficent's a heavy sleeper because she didn't even notice and she wakes up de-feathered.
Maleficent: [screams]
"I never even got to find out how they tasted!"
Stephan drops off the wings which... equals a body, I guess, and is appointed king.
Maleficent says "If one character can spontaneously turn into a dick, so can I" and she turns herself evil.
Her first order of evil business?
Turn a random crow into a boy!
YOU MONSTER!
"I need you to be my wings."
"What do I call you?"
"Diaval."
What do they call you?
"Diaval."
That's not a name, that's the sound a goose makes when it farts.
"Diaval."
So, Maleficent and "BEYBAH"
decide to turn their kingdom into a den of evil...
...or just make things dark, but OOOH it looks so evil!
And hatch the diabolical plan of... sitting around and doing nothing for years.
Doth your evil know no...starting point?
Of course Stephan gets himself a queen who gives birth to a daughter named Aurora.
And three of the other kingdom's most annoying fairies come to foster peace.
Knotgrass: "I wish for you, the gift of beauty."
Flittle: "My wish is that you'll never be blue. Only happy all the days of your life."
May seeing grief and sorrow in other people confuse you so you cannot comfort them.
Before the last fairy can give her present though,
and by the way, yes, we never figure out what it was going to be,
Maleficent steps in to constantly show off that she has two rows of teeth.
Knotgrass: "Stay away from the princess!"
Thistlewit: "Yes, stay away!"
[crowd gasps in fright]
Fairies: [cry out in pain]
[thud]
"I'll call you when a 90's rainforest needs patronizing."
"Before the sun sets on her sixteenth birthday,
she will prick her finger on the spindle of a spinning wheel,
OH MY--Actually, that's not too bad.
"And fall into a sleep-like death!"
Oh...that's much worse.
Actually, why don't you just make it death?
Why a deep sleep that's like death, why don't you just make it death?
Wouldn't that be a lot simpler?
"Never!"
Okay, your curse.
And because this movie's tone also seems to be on a spinning wheel,
listen to the music they play over this scene.
[dramatic drum beat plays]
"I like you begging..."
"Do it again."
[deep voice] Aw yeah, she's totally cursing that baby to feel the rhythm of her swing.
Oh yeah!
"I beg you." "Alright."
Maleficent:"The princess can be woken from her death sleep."
"But only by true love's kiss."
No!
What are the chances a beautiful girl who's happy 24-7 will find someone to love her?!
You weirdly-not-practical monster!
So, yeah as if the fairies weren't pointless enough in this,
they don't even offset Maleficent's magic with true love's kiss or sleep instead of death addition.
Yeah, don't you remember?
That was the last gift that the fairy was supposed to give but now there's just no gift at all.
It's just Maleficent's own idiotic curse that was a lot simpler in the original.
Maleficent: "On her sixteenth birthday, she shall prick her finger...AND DIE!"
"Oh, wait, wait, wait! There's also like five loopholes I myself wanted to put in."
"I want to be a fair Mistress of Evil."
To make things even dumber, it's the king's idea to give his daughter to the fairies to raise her for sixteen years.
Why?
They in no way show they have an understanding of Maleficent's magic
AND they act like bumbling dumbasses!
Look at their faces, they can barely even carry this kid!
One song of 'Rock-a-bye Baby' can turn into ROCK! Uh, bye baby!
SMART!
So, Maleficent builds a wall around her kingdom.
Don't worry, the humans will pay for it.
Narrator: "And she reveled in the sorrow that her curse had brought."
"And the millions of ways it can be overturned."
"Like, I haven't done the math but I'm pretty sure it's in the mills."
The fairies go to a cottage where they do eventually make themselves bigger.
Ugh, how fake. Can we go back to the realistic looking CGI bodies?
And as expected, they turn out to be pretty shitty parents.
Right down to leaving her outside to be spotted
and Maleficent finding them literally before they can even move in!
Oh, there goes all that suspense!
Oh, wait I take it back, there actually is a lot of suspense.
Suspense that these three lobotomized Hocus Pocus stooges will kill the child before Maleficent does!
In fact, Maleficent SAVES Aurora from their benign child-slaughtering ways
and even ends up raising her more than the fairies do!
I'm not even joking! That's what happens over all these years!
Look, I'm open to a different interpretation
but the fairies in the original were clumsy but loving and caring and charming.
These three literally let the baby almost DIE on several occasions
and sleep through half of it and fight through the other half!
They're despicably unlikable!
In fact, they're easier to hate than the character you're supposed to hate!
Actually, yeah, let's talk about her for a bit.
It's clear what Disney is trying to do,
they're trying to go the "Wicked" route of taking a famous villain with no sympathy
and making her a misunderstood hero.
But here's the thing, the original Wicked Witch from the Wizard of Oz is a thug!
She's a simpleton with a low vocabulary who uses blunt force to get whatever she wants.
There's supposed to be no charm to her.
So, in 'Wicked', it's compelling when you see her as the opposite.
A smart, fragile charismatic yet misunderstood outcast
who got blamed for everything because she was different and didn't always know how to fight back.
You can easily see how this world would make up a story about her being this villain.
With Sleeping Beauty, Maleficent is already a charming, charismatic and sophisticated villain.
She has her outbursts of course, but there's always a charm and grace to whatever she does.
You love how smart, elegant and diabolical she can be.
So, to make this work, you would have to do the opposite.
And A, I'm not sure that's what this movie does and B, if it does, it doesn't do it well.
She's not simple enough to have a charming naivety
but she's also not intelligent enough to be diabolical or menacing.
Her actions half the time are pulling pranks on the fairies or trying to scare the baby with faces.
And when it doesn't work, she says:
"I hate you."
Like a fifth grader!
So, on no level does this come together.
It can't go all the way with what it originally was but it can't go all the way with the opposite either.
She's the badass Mistress of all Ev--!
[cooing] Oh, she looks so cute when a kid hugs her!
I'm so behind her being a badass villain--
[cooing] except when they're trying to make her a cute awkward babysitter!
Oh ho ho ho!
Mistress of all Evil? How about Mistress of just stopping Home Alone sequels in her spare time?!
Though, that would be a welcome gift.
So as the years pass, Aurora, now played by Elle Fanning,
grows older and, wouldn't you know it, Maleficent and her grow a close friendship.
Again, this film gives us exactly what we want from a Maleficent movie.
"I know who you are."
Maleficent: "Do you?"
"You're my fairy godmother."
To be fair, I'd rather have her than Helena Bonham Carter.
So, she visits Maleficent every night and they just...hang out.
Throw mud at each other, have girl talk, express their feelings,
again, EXACTLY what you would want from a Maleficent movie.
Did I mention in the upcoming Frollo film that him and Quasimodo go bowling?
It's very sweet and totally understands the character.
In fact, she gets along so well with Aurora that she even tries lifting the curse but she finds she can't.
Yeah, apparently even she doesn't know what the hell her powers can do.
"There is an evil in this world."
"I can take care of myself."
"I frolicked and smiled like nobody's business."
"I'm very self-reliant!"
Lucky, lucky though, a young prince named Phillip is wondering through the forest and comes across Aurora.
It's love at first-- Phillip: "Goodbye."
Smalltalk. Hey, it's still more dialogue than they had in the original film.
Thus Maleficent and "BEHABAH" discuss if the prince can break the spell.
"True love's kiss, remember? It can break the spell."
"True love's kiss?"
"I cursed her that way because there is no such thing."
"It's a very abstract, open to interpretation spell."
So on the eve of her 16th Birthday, Aurora tells the fairies that she's leaving them...
[splat]
Way to add to the mood.
And they accidentally blurt out that who she really is.
"We are taking you back to your father witho--!"
"You told me my parents were dead."
"It's almost like you're awful, awful, awful, awful, awful,
AWFUL people!"
Aurora clarifies this with her real parent, Maleficent,
--Did you hear how stupid that sounded, that's the story!
As she also discovers that Maleficent is the one who cursed her.
[cries] "Don't touch me! You're the evil that's in the world!"
No, actually that's the good version,
but this one is at least...dumb.
She makes her way to her real father who has slowly been growing insane over the years,
resulting in his voice sounding even sillier than it did before.
Stephan: [shrill Scottish accent] "You look just like your mother."
"I told those three idiots! They brought you back a day too soon.
"Lock her up in her room."
Did they replace him with a shrinking Scrooge McDuck?
How am I supposed to be intimidated by that voice?!
Maleficent thinks the prince's kiss might work,
so she knocks him out and tries taking him to the palace where Aurora is.
She of course pricks her finger and goes into a deep sleep, throwing her father's voice into a gargling rage.
"Look at her."
"Look at what you've done."
"She's only sleeping."
Oh, my god, have they invented pesticide yet? Where's you bedside manners?!
Stephan: "She's only sleeping..."
"She's only sleeping FOREVER!"
David Tennant sucking helium balloons would sound more intimidating than this guy!
The prince tries kissing her but it doesn't work,
so Maleficent goes in and...
Don't get too excited.
It's the Frozen logic, the love for a family member over a romantic love
and since the spell already has enough fine print, it counts.
However the crazy old white dude reveals he's the villain and not the scary-looking green lady
cause again, if we're not gonna tell this story, we might as well tell this one
And the guards entrap her.
But she turns "BEHABAH" into a dragon...
I...feel like there's several instances where that could have come in handy.
"I need you to be my wings."
Turn yourself into something with wings!
Like in the origina--!!
And Auroa breaks open Maleficent's wings that fly directly to her.
Yaay! It's Sleeping Beauty teamed up with Maleficent to fight and old crazy guy!
Sorry, no part of that is cooler than this.
There's not even an acknowledgement to their past relationship or the years of love that they shared.
She just tosses him over and...it's done.
You kind of even forgot they were in love, it's such a meaningless connection they have.
But at least a scene later, it's revealed that Aurora is now queen of both kingdoms.
All those years of giggling and twirling in her dress will no doubt lead to a strong government.
[cheering]
Narrator: "So you see, the story is not quite as you were told."
Even though Disney told me the first version I ever heard...
And I liked it a lot better.
Narrator: "And I should know, for I was the one they called "Sleeping Beauty."
"I've been smoking a lot, that's why my pitch is a little off."
Narrator: "My kingdom was united not by a hero or a villain, but by one who was both hero and villain."
So that way nobody is happy. Yaaaaay...
Ugh! So that is one of greatest Disney villains of all time.
Doesn't it show?
I'll admit it does look very nice even though the effects can be very fake,
it still was shot quite beautifully and gives us some nice visual landscapes.
But this movie is an insult to one of Disney's greatest characters.
We don't want to see Maleficent as a hero, we love her fine as a villain.
You want to make her more complex, fine, but don't tell us deep down she's a good person!
That's not what we're looking for!
Some villains are so good, we enjoy hating them,
like the Joker or Freddy Krueger or any number of the Disney baddies!
Trying to be both bad and good ruins what we appreciated about this kind of character to begin with.
That she did go all the way.
There's definitely great villains that can explore the good and the bad, but this shouldn't be one of them.
This movie needed to pick a side a tone and an idea to stick with.
Instead, it just sucks out the evil fun that made our happily ever after all the more happier.
And it's a spell I'm not gonna fall for.
And I'll tell you what, I'm avoiding the movies of this writer.
I mean, it's not like this person wrote any other live action Disney film--It's the next one, isn't it?
[Nostalgia Critic Theme plays] DAMMIT!
"Diaval."
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