Maleficent: Mistress of Evil is directed beautifully, but the story couldn’t quite live up to visual effects!!!

Real Rating: 3 Stars

What I Like:

-I thought director Joachim Ronning really painted a beautiful picture for this sequel, the visual effects were stunning, and the battle scenes were fun to watch
-The acting was fine, you get what you get with Angelina Jolie, and Michelle Pfeiffer did good in her role as well, everybody else was good enough to not make it corny or boring

The So So:

-I enjoyed the backstory of where Maleficent comes from, but it really didn’t mesh too well with the rest of the story, and was just an added in for reasons I guess, and doesn’t quite make sense

What I Didn’t Like:

-The story is very subpar, the usual fairy tale of good vs evil, humans vs other entities, real vs magic, evil manipulation twists we see from miles away, and all the other things we have seen before, not only that, everything seemed rushed without substance, and lastly, the ending was just dumb in the end

Overall:

Plain and simple. Great visual effects worth seeing in 3D, but a story too subpar that it isn’t fulfilling. Since I saw the first trailer, I thought this was a very unnecessary sequel. Though I appreciate the effort on making something original with an iconic Disney villain, it really wasn’t that original at all. Now we will see what more Disney live remakes will happen. For better or worse!!!

Real Rating: 3 Stars

(Sidenote: Midsommer- Very rare you see a creepy horror film in the bright of day, but this is exactly what you get. I give a lot of credit to director Ari Aster for beautifully creating a horror film about anthropology students going to a small town in Sweden for their thesis, and ending up being in a cult festival in a time in the summer where night time is almost obsolete. It is very genius, but also very creepy in seeing how crazy people can get. Interesting, yet somewhat terrifying, for a movie with a slow burn at the beginning!!!
Real Rating: 3.5 Stars)