Maleficent (2014)

Director: Robert Stromberg

Cast: Angelina Jolie, Sharlto Copley, Elle Fanning, Sam Riley

Have I Seen it Before: Never.

Did I Like It: I admire the idea behind the film. Trying to tell the story of a famed villain from their perspective already offers more from a live-action Disney remake than the rest of the (largely money grabbing) genre has managed to generate so far. But there’s more to it than that. If kids can begin to grasp, even if it is on an unconscious level, that the apparent villainy of some might have their own motivations and intentions, then there might be some hope for future generations*.

The execution of the film leaves a little bit to be desired. I’m not sure if Jolie ever actually shared a scene with any of her co-stars. Especially in the early scenes, it is looking an awful lot like Jolie showed up for a few days of green screen work to glower, look bemused, and shout pronouncements to characters several hundred yards away. Things might improve a little bit as the film’s central story kicks into gear, but not a whole lot. It might be an intentional choice to make Maleficent distant from everyone else, but I can’t watch it and not think Jolie lives that distance from the rest of humanity every day.

I might be willing to call that element one of the film’s secret, if tragic, strengths, but other elements aren’t doing the film any favors. Much of the CGI already looks dodgy, further cementing the sinking realization that as time progresses, the half life of special effects only shrinks. That, too, can be forgiven, but the film also is so preposterously weighed down by endless voice over narration. I’d bet a not insignificant amount of money that the narration was added late in the production at the insistence of the studio, as it is as disconnected as Jolie is from the film it inhabits.

*That is assuming that future generations have any amount of disagreements, or even basic human society to enjoy in the years to come… Geez, that footnote got dark.

Mary Shelley (2017)

Director: Haifaa al-Mansour

Cast: Elle Fanning, Douglas Booth, Maisie Williams, Stephen Dillane

Have I Seen it Before: Never. Until stumbling upon it at the Library, I hadn’t even known the film existed.

Did I Like It: The biopic will often leave me feeling wanting. While following the tropes of the genre, I feel like I will get more out of reading a biography about the subject. The only exception I can readily reach for is Man on the Moon (1999) and Walk the Line (2006), but both of those had something else going for them. 

In this case, everything is done correctly. The production value is high, and I buy the nineteenth century setting. I feel like it might very well pass the bar where—if viewed in years to come—it will not be immediately apparent when the film was made, although I also grant that timeless quality can’t really be passed until some actual time has passed. Fanning plays the role with assuredness that makes it clear she isn’t the problem with the film.

But there isn’t anything additional to the film to recommend it. There is a bland sameness to the proceedings, and even the passion Shelley must have felt in the creation of her most famous work comes across as tepid. There are plenty of great films about the act of writing that stick with you long after they stop. This isn’t one of them, sadly. It’s not hard to imagine why the film didn’t come across hardly anyones radar.

It does introduce an odd desire in me that I’ve never experienced with a biopic before. I did go out and but a written biography of her, sure. But I also had the strongest urge to re-watch Bride of Frankenstein (1935). I’ve never had a biopic push me in the direction of an even sillier version of the story, but I suppose there’s a first time or everything.

Super 8 (2011)

Director: J.J. Abrams

Cast: Joel Courtney, Elle Fanning, Riley Griffiths, Ryan Lee

Have I Seen it Before: Oh, sure. Hell, on some level I kind of lived it. No, my town wasn’t mysteriously taken over by a strange creature, unless you count the strange penguin statues that cropped up one day in 2002 and never completely left. It’s more that I spent some time while I was growing up screaming “production value” at my friends while we all tried with intermittent success to not get hit by oncoming trains.

Did I Like It: It’s sort of painful to say that this is the best movie J.J. Abrams has ever (and may yet ever, the way things are going) directed. Star Trek (2009), Mission: Impossible III (2006), and Star Wars – Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015) are all enjoyable romps, and I don’t want to entirely discount them, but this one reaches for actual characters, as opposed to trying to renew interest in television series that once starred Leonard Nimoy. Also, this has no discernable Beastie Boys in it, although I suppose at that point they would have to be called The Young Aborigines at the point in time that the film is set.

Whenever I see this film (it’s on semi-regular rotation at our house) I can’t help but feel nostalgic for that time when the most important thing in the world was making stuff with my friends. I was Charles Kaznyk (Griffiths) growing up, with all of the warts that entailed. The rest of the kids aren’t perfect analogues for the people I knew way-back-when, but they are imminently real and recognizable. There are too few films that depict kids in a way that feels anything like the childhood I enjoyed, and that alone is enough to make the film imminently enjoyable.

Some complain about the ending, and aside from a bit too much similarity in tone to the end of E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982), I’m fine with it.

Oh, on that note, there is also a monster in the movie, apparently. That seems sort of secondary to the proceedings, and that may be the distillation of its flaws. I am far less interested in this movie when Cooper the monster is featured, but I suppose that’s okay. They don’t give this kind of money to movies about weird kids with monster makeup. Production value, am I right?