• “Maleficent: Mistress of Evil”: While 2014’s live-action “Maleficent” had a clear goal of rehabbing the image of Sleeping Beauty’s evil stepmother with a compelling performance by Angelina Jolie, its sequel adds much more chaos to the mix.
Initially this comes in the form of meeting the in-laws (relatable?), with the marriage of Queen Aurora (Elle Fanning) and Prince Philip (Harris Dickinson) uniting the two kingdoms. The family is led by a cutthroat Queen Ingrith (Michelle Pfeiffer), eventually inspiring Maleficent to storm off, with plenty of pandemonium to ensue.
While much of the plot and drawn-out battles fail to resonate, its camp and unhinged qualities can delight, wrote Los Angeles Times critic Justin Chang in his review.
“You don’t cast Michelle Pfeiffer as a scheming, crossbow-wielding queen without getting a lot of grade-A glower for your money,” wrote Chang. “And it’s hard not to appreciate the sheer derangement of the plot that Ingrith has concocted … Disney might well have drawn a few more eyeballs by tweaking the title, but ‘Maleficent: Fairy Apocalypse’ probably just didn’t have the same ring.”
