Maleficent series

(Disney+ Streaming, December 2020) If you’ll allow me to be cranky for just a moment, let me rant for a hundred words on how I dislike the current trend of not allowing villain to remain villains. You don’t need to remind me that there aren’t that many self-acknowledged villains in real life – everyone has their reasons, and all can rationalize them. But in fiction? Let me have some evil people running amok, making life difficult for the heroes. Don’t go digging into their backstories, making them misunderstood sad sacks, or rewriting their heinous acts as good-faith errors. Alas, that’s the entire point of Maleficent and its sequel Mistress of Evil: shift perspective to the antagonist and show that, aw, she’s really a good girl after all. Or at least not as bad as the other girls. Whatever. But (twist!), this excessive humanization of the antagonist isn’t the worst aspect of the film – that would be the overstuffed yet unsatisfying story, which muddles its own morals and crams so much material in what should be a simpler (and shorter!) film that it loses its interest at every new complication. The weak script is partially offset by strong performances (none as impressive as Angelina Jolie’s return in the title role) and phenomenal special effects, but not enough to bring the film to an acceptable level. Disney’s live-action looting of its library doesn’t necessarily get better when it starts spinning off “original sequels” to the riffs – it just underscores how desperate the Mouse can be for sure hits. And no, I don’t want to humanize The Mouse’s actions at this point.