As the sum of all its parts, Maleficent is a downright fun film.

| Jan 21, 2021

Angelina Jolie is good in the film, and I do think kids will dig this movie.

| Original Score: B- | Dec 14, 2018

It's a splendid-looking film. The effects are striking throughout, whether they are dramatic battle confrontations between humans and the forces of the natural world, or small moments of delicate detail.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Dec 14, 2018

Maleficent makes two fatal mistakes, the first being a problem of narrative.

| Dec 13, 2018

Angelina Jolie is unimpeachably well cast as the hitherto evil - now merely misunderstood - sorceress who, outraged by patriarchal abuse, does what she does to the region's fairest princess.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Dec 13, 2018

Undoubtedly, Jolie's performance will be touted as elegantly evil, but it's Elle Fanning's effervescence as Aurora that really makes this film glow.

| Dec 13, 2018

Jolie's skills and range as an actress are barely tapped into in this undemanding role.

| Dec 13, 2018

As for the screenplay, by Linda Woolverton, it treads carefully, and all too kindly, in the footsteps of "Wicked" ...

| Jun 16, 2014

This fairytale world is stunningly photographed by another Australian veteran Dean Semler, and the sets, costumes and design in general are of the first rank.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Jun 6, 2014

Imaginatively, it places all the known elements of the story in different contexts, completely recasting this familiar fairy tale into a more poignant and resonant work.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Jun 5, 2014

In "Maleficent" a lush fairy-tale world is created and the result is truly magical.

| Jun 2, 2014

It's an icky affair: more Perry (Katy) than Perrault (Charles).

| Original Score: 1/5 | Jun 1, 2014

It's a technological marvel starring the world's biggest celebrity: the full weight of Hollywood spectacle incarnate.

| Original Score: C+ | May 31, 2014

As a cameo, Jolie's performance might have proven spectacular; but as a protagonist, she doesn't give us enough to hold onto. For all her efforts, she remains yet another special effect, however spectacular.

| May 30, 2014

When you've got a talented visual effects artist at the helm, iconic source material, an all-star cast and a hefty studio-sized budget to back it all up, there's just no excuse to deliver such a lazy film.

| Original Score: 1.5/5 | May 30, 2014

At least Disney was smart enough to cast Jolie. She has a genuinely heroic presence. If only the movie were equal to it.

| Original Score: C+ | May 30, 2014

You feel a little absurd being moved by something as shoddily put together as this. But it likes these women -- even the nincompoop pixies. It believes in its star.

| May 30, 2014

Whatever its flaws, "Maleficent" is a family-friendly Disney adventure that offers a relaunched and thoroughly delightful Angelina Jolie ...

| May 30, 2014

It hardly matters that Jolie's accent rambles a bit between pungent Cockney and plummy Buckingham Palace.

| May 30, 2014

Warmed-over Frozen.

| Original Score: D | May 30, 2014