I know the official title of this sequel is Maleficent: Mistress of Evil, but I think a more appropriate title could be Maleficent: Everything but the Kitchen Sink. This film has so many sub-plots, so many characters to keep track of, and so many powers to explain within the realm of magical creatures, I was exhausted trying to keep track of everything.
Princess Aurora (Elle Fanning, The Beguiled, 2017) gets engaged to Prince Phillip (Harris Dickinson, Beach Rats, 2017), and her godmother/guardian Maleficent (Angelina Jolie, Kung Fu Panda 3, 2017) begrudgingly agrees to support this union of love. But Prince Phillip's mother, Queen Ingrith (Michelle Pfeiffer, Murder on the Orient Express, 20147) has plans of her own...based in racism and murder.
I imagine the producers of this film (and the screenwriters) held numerous meetings to ensure this sequel packed a wallop of excitement and visual effects. They must have thought every single idea was a brilliant one because this film runs over 2 hours long, has about 15 characters, and explains what feels like 87 different rules for the magical plants, creatures, and backstory of Maleficent's homeland. Viewers have seen this lack of restraint in live-action Disney films before like the Pirates of the Caribbean sequels that started in 2006. But bigger is not always better. Don't the producers at Disney know this already?
Maleficent: Mistress of Evil felt like a children's version of the TV series, Game of Thrones only with a more magical setting and a much messier narrative. The first Maleficent film from 2014 is one of the very few live-action Disney remakes in the past few years that offers something interesting and different. But this sequel is just glittery excess.
