Genre Guesstimation – Maleficent (2014)

The idea behind this feature (Genre Guesstimation) is for me to watch a bunch of new movies (or ones that I haven’t seen many times) from the chosen monthly GG genre in order to expand my knowledge of movies within that particular genre.

This month’s Genre has been chosen by Summer of Serendipitous Anachronisms She has chosen quite a unique genre and we will be reviewing our favorite Derivative Work Movies.

Here’s Summer to explain her choice:

Basically it is anything based or inspired by pre-existing source

for example:

Amelie takes its relationships from the Luncheon of the Boating Party

The Magnificent Seven is borrowed from the Seven Samurai

Sunday in the Park with George is based on painting by George Seurat

Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead is loosely based on Hamlet

My Own Private Idaho borrows from Henry the IV

Cosi is about a director directing the musical Cosi Fan Tutti

Pride Prejudice and Zombies borrows from Pride and Prejudice

Clueless borrows from the novel Emma

Monty Python and the Holy Grail borrows from the Arthurian Legend

Basically a film that borrows from pre-existing source but reinvents the source material into something else

Please get me your submissions by the 25th of June by sending them to derivativesummer@movierob.net  Try to think out of the box! Great choice Summer!

Let’s see if I felt that this movie would be worthy of being in the company of my others favorite movies in the genre of Derivative Work Films…

“Royalty. Nobility. Gentry. How quaint. Even the rabble. ” – Maleficent

Number of Times Seen – 1 (16 Jun 2016)

Brief Synopsis – A retelling of the story of Sleeping Beauty from the perspective of the evil fairy Maleficent.

My Take on it – When this movie came out two years ago, I had a small desire to see it, but my dislike of star Angelina Jolie along with the fact that I hadn’t heard many good things about the film, kept me far away.

When Summer chose derivative films for this month’s Genre Grandeur, I immediately thought of this film because it fits perfectly into her explanation. Maleficent is a character in Sleeping Beauty and here she gets her own story.

Finally, I had a reason to check this out.

I was actually hoping that all my preconceived thought on it would be completely wrong and that I’d enjoy this film.

Unfortunately, that was not to be.

I really enjoy the original Sleeping Beauty story and here they twist it in ways that I wont explain because of spoilers and instead of giving us the same path that Disney took with the tale, we get a more Hollywoodicized version which was quite disappointing.

The special effects were done very well, but since they couldn’t use an effect to make the story better, the CGI stuff doesn’t amount to much…

Watch the original Disney classic to get the good version of this

Bottom Line – Not as good as I’d hoped it could be. They started off well, but once they went in the Hollywood direction instead of the original Disney one, things completely fall apart. Never been much of a fan of Jolie and she disappoints here regardless because I don’t like the character she plays at all and feel no connection what so ever to her or her motives.  The film also fails due to not sticking close enough to the fairy tale story itself.  Some nice special effects, but with the disappointing story, the effects can’t help much.

MovieRob’s Favorite Trivia – On the second day of the Disney D23 Expo at the Anaheim Convention Center, Saturday, 10 August 2013, Angelina Jolie admitted that she scared little kids while in costume on the set of Maleficent, with one kid actually saying, “Mommy, please get the mean witch to stop talking to me.” She adds that her daughter, Vivienne Jolie-Pitt, played young Aurora, and was the only kid who wasn’t scared of her. (From IMDB)

Genre Grandeur Worthy? – Not even close. I had high hopes for this and was glad to finally see it, but it was quite disappointing.

Rating – Razzie Worthy

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