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Movies "* -
Maleficent -(Century 20, Century 16) In spite of a virtual feature-length stampede of CGI special effects, it’s good old-fashioned movie-star wattage that stuns in “Maleficent.” Disney’s revisionist take on its own “Sleeping Beauty” almost certainly wouldn’t have been made were it not for Angelina Jolie, whose extraordinarily striking presence recalls the Old Hollywood potency of Greta Garbo. If only the film around Jolie were worthy of her. Perhaps “Maleficent” could have been an extraordinary work of art, a la Cocteau’s “La belle et la bête” had it been approached from a place of confident emotional truth-telling, narrative patience and visual poetry. The work of first-time director Robert Stromberg (a veteran of visual effects and art direction) manages some striking visuals suggesting that direction could have been possible, but even if he were Cocteau, he’d still be up against economics: This Disney picture is as much about brand-building synergy as anything else. Disney’s long struggle to do restitution for its princess-myth years continues by re-imagining Maleficent as an orphan fairy queen (Isobelle Molloy) flying happily about her wooded land as a heroic freedom-fighter, “protector of the moors” from a nearby human kingdom. But when she grows of age to take her crack at love, and experiences as a result a physically violating betrayal that’s deeply traumatizing, the full-grown Maleficent (Jolie) turns on a dime to vengeance against the man who betrayed her: King Stefan (Sharlto Copley). This trajectory could make sense, but instead of allowing Maleficent to articulate her pain at any point, we merely get five seconds of Jolie wailing in anguish before she decides black is the new black. After this origin story (a Hollywood addiction of recent years), “Maleficent” sets to replaying Disney’s 1959 “Sleeping Beauty” (itself adapted from Charles Perrault’s fairy-tale text “La Belle au bois dormant”). Ironically, “Maleficent” is unarguably at its most arresting in the scene that tinkers least with the source material: when Jolie, newly decked out as the villainous version of Maleficent, sleekly strides up to Stefan’s throne and curses his infant daughter Aurora. Jolie has the scene for lunch, and the film comes roaring to life. She gets a little help from the traditional costume — with its black drapery and imposing, devilish horns — and Rick Baker’s makeup design, which makes her already formidable cheekbones look like they could get part-time work as meat slicers. But we’re not meant to enjoy this display (which prompts the reaction “You’re the evil that’s in the world”) as much as we do, as the film’s raison d’etre is to explain Maleficent’s humanity. It’s a noble cause to reconceive evil — especially to children — as just a person you haven’t figured out yet, but some classic tales lend themselves more readily to such an approach than others (John Gardner’s novel “Grendel” hit the sweet spot). The screenplay by Linda Woolverton (Disney’s “Beauty and the Beast”) next sends Maleficent on a journey of remorse for having misdirected her anger onto an innocent. The babe grows into teenage Elle Fanning, whose Aurora mistakes the ever-lurking Maleficent for her fairy godmother. Aurora has a date with a spindle, and maybe with Brenton Thwaites’ Prince Phillip for a curse-ending “true love’s kiss,” but as the narration promises, this story is “not quite as you were told”: Archetypal male conquest will lose, and the best of archetypal female power will overcome the worst of it. Plus a CGI dragon. Rated PG for sequences of fantasy action and violence, including frightening images. One hour, 37 minutes. — Peter Canavese
A Million Ways to Die in the West --1/2 (Century 16, Century 20) There’s no accounting for taste, they say, which might explain the $549 million worldwide gross for Seth MacFarlane’s 2012 comedy “Ted.” Something tells me the planet won’t go quite so gaga for his Western-themed sophomore effort, “A Million Ways to Die in the West,” but it’s considerably better — even within spitting distance of good. MacFarlane’s last movie could be summed up in a few words — foul-mouthed teddy bear — but “A Million Ways to Die in the West” has at least two ideas more sophisticated than crossing Teddy Ruxpin with a blue insult comic. The first is right there in the title: that the Old West was a miserable, deadly place to be. The second is that giving the lead character extra insight on this would be funny. Neither of these ideas is especially original (the latter approach, a tonal sensibility, has fueled many a fish-out-of-water historical comedy, like Woody Allen basically plunking his 20th-century nebbish into czarist Russia for “Love and Death”), but together, they’re a start. In 1882, sheep farmer Albert Stark (MacFarlane) languishes in the frontier town of Old Stump, Arizona. Too smart-mouthed for his own good, he finds himself in one of those Main Street quickdraw showdowns, but the cowardice he shows puts the nail in the coffin of his relationship with local girl Louise (Amanda Seyfried). Albert’s having a hard time letting go of Louise when Anna (an appealing Charlize Theron) turns up in town and, taking a shine to Albert, volunteers to help him show Louise what she’s missing. But we know something Albert doesn’t: that Anna has gone AWOL from the gang of murderous bandit Clinch Leatherwood (Liam Neeson). Plus Anna’s “help” gets Albert obligated to another gunfight, this time with Louise’s new boyfriend Foy (Neil Patrick Harris), who runs the town “moustachery.” These background threats give the screenplay — by MacFarlane, Alec Sulkin and Wellesley Wild — a bit of useful tension, but the main throughline is oldschool romantic comedy as Albert slowly awakens to Anna’s interest in him and realizes reciprocating it would be an excellent idea. The whole of “A Million Ways to Die in the West” is lesser than the sum of its parts due to deficits of ambition, invention and commitment. MacFarlane and company don’t push hard enough in their deconstruction of the Old West: You may feel at times like you’re in a writer’s room hearing jokes pitched rather than enjoying a final draft. Still, a number of those gags are pretty good. Kudos for including jokes about Stephen Foster (including a touched-up version of Foster’s “If You’ve Only Got a Moustache”) and a runner about how no one smiles in old photographs. In the deficit column, MacFarlane collects famous friends and puts them to waste in tee-hee cameos or underwritten parts (fans of Neeson and Sarah Silverman, who plays a Christian prostitute, will walk away disappointed), even as he struggles to hold the screen in his first on-camera leading role. The real stars here are the Monument Valley scenery (afforded the entire old-fashioned opening title sequence to Joel McNeely’s lively score), Theron and Harris, who demonstrates his comic Midas Touch by making funny gestures and funnier noises between limp lines of dialogue. Rated R for crude and sexual content, language, some violence and drug content. One hours, 56 minutes. — Peter Canavese