Featured Blu-ray and DVD Review: Maleficent: Mistress of Evil

January 7, 2020

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I loved the first Maleficent, certainly more than the average critic did. The sequel, Maleficent: Mistress of Evil, earned even worse reviews and struggled at the box office. Are these results fair? Or should this film have also performed as well at the box office as the first film did?

The Movie

The film begins with some poachers entering the Moors to steal some of the little Fey people. Only one of the three manages to make it out. He sells the Fey to another fairy, Lickspittle, who seems uninterested in the Fey, but is excited by the flower the man has: Tomb Bloom.

We then look in on Aurora, who is Queen of the Moors. I get the impression she doesn’t enjoy the job, because ruling the Feys is like trying to organize cats, some of whom are particularly dumb cats. Some are also agitated due to the missing faeries, while others are overly excited because it is the “big day”. Prince Philip has come to propose to Aurora and she accepts. When word gets back to Maleficent, she is less than pleased. This is understandable; after all, her only experience is when romance ended with her wings being cut off. Prince Philip’s father, King John, is ecstatic over this news. His mother, Queen Ingrith, is less than happy. It has been five years since the events of the first film, but in that time, propaganda has spread that Maleficent is the villain and Ingrith is happy to spread that. She claims to be happy for her son and even invites Maleficent to dinner. In fact, she insists Maleficent comes to dinner.

The dinner is even more awkward than dinner with the potential in-laws usually is, as Queen Ingrith isn’t interested in hiding her disdain for Maleficent. Not that Maleficent doesn’t hold Queen Ingrith in disdain, but at least she’s trying to hide it for the sake of Aurora. Tensions start high and escalate as Queen Ingrith attempts to bait Maleficent into overreacting. It works. Worse still, King John is hit with the same curse Maleficent put on Aurora in the first film. She claims she didn’t do it, but when even Aurora doesn’t believe her, Maleficent flies away, only to be shot by Gerda.

Maleficent plummets into the river and over the water fall, only to be rescued by another like her. What exactly he is and where he takes her is too deep into spoiler territory.

Because this movie is a sequel, there’s not a lot that needs to be said in the review. Maleficent: Mistress of Evil is very similar to its predecessor, I just don’t think it is as good as that film was. I don’t think that’s a contentious argument to make. That said, I still enjoyed it significantly more than the average critic did. Angelina Jolie is still fantastic as the titular Maleficent and I would watch a full movie of just her and Michelle Pfeiffer verbally sparing with each other. I would watch a mini-series of that. Some new elements worked. For example, Chiwetel Ejiofor was a good addition to the film, but for the most part, the movie just doesn’t deliver where the first film did.

Sadly, the parts that don’t work as well this time around include Aurora. It’s not Elle Fanning’s fault, but the fault of the writers, who didn’t give the character the same sense of of charm and wonder that she had in the first film. In fact, you could say this about much of the movie. It has a larger scope, but at the cost of some of the first film’s charm.

The Extras

Extras begin with Origins of the Fey looking at how the movie tried to answer the question about Maleficent’s origins and what the other Fey were like. Aurora’s Wedding is about the wedding scene in the movie. If You Had Wings is the longest of the four featurettes and it looks at how they animated Maleficent’s wings with regard to her emotions and how the different Fey’s wings were unique to their biome. Finally, Maleficent: Mistress of Evil VFX Reel is a look at several scenes as they were filmed and what the final VFX looked like. There are also two Extended Scenes and two minutes of outtakes. Finally, there is a music video for “You Can’t Stop the Girl” by Bebe Rexha. The total running time is just 20 minutes. That’s really disappointing for a first-run release.

The Verdict

Maleficent: Mistress of Evil can’t live up to its predecessor, but I still enjoyed the movie enough to want to watch it again. Unfortunately, its extras on the DVD / Blu-ray / 4K are weak for a first-run release and that hurts the value. It is still worth picking up, but barely.

C.S.Strowbridge

Filed under: Video Review, Maleficent: Mistress of Evil, Angelina Jolie, Warwick Davis, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Elle Fanning, Michelle Pfeiffer, Robert Lindsay, Jenn Murray, Harris Dickinson