Movie review: Maleficent (M)

Maleficent is played by Angelina Jolie.

Fearsomely beautiful, and a little bit badass, Angelina Jolie is the perfect actress to create Maleficent, the villain-come-hero of Sleeping Beauty.

Add a pair of buffalo horns, black wings, leather jumpsuit, blood-red lips, and digitalised cheekbones that could cut ice -- this is one hell of a bad fairy.

This year's Disney version of Sleeping Beauty follows the literary trend for revisionist fairy tales -- in the vein of Wicked and Mirror Mirror; Maleficent tells the back-story of the 1959 classic Sleeping Beauty.

Maleficent is a good fairy growing up in the idyllic forest kingdom, the Moors, peopled with magic mushroom-like gnomes and tree people.

Maleficent rises to be the land's strong protector against the enemy human kingdom. Her downfall is a heartless betrayal by one of the humans, Stefan, who befriends Maleficent only to cut off her wings while she sleeps so that he can become king.

Wounded and consumed by hatred and revenge, Maleficent curses Stefan's first child Aurora. Yet as the child grows, Maleficent comes to love her, and regrets the curse.

This is no black-and-white morality tale but tells a story of the complexities of human emotions and relationships.

Jolie is adept at giving an insight into how being dreadfully hurt can make a person turn hateful, even evil.

In the end love still saves the day, but not as we might expect from the fairy tale stereotype of princes and princesses.

Rated for mature audiences, it is equally delightful to children, and more intelligently real than old-fashioned syrupy Disney.

Maleficent is aimed at the tween market, which likes its fairy tales a little bit dark. It has excellent digital effects -- such as the shape-shifting Diaval, Maleficent's raven pal which she turns into a human, wolf or dragon -- and epic battle scenes. This is a crowd-pleaser for kids and adults alike.

It is not all dark fantasy and morality tale, the relationship between Maleficent and Diaval, and the trio of silly "good" fairies adds humour.

Watch the trailer here: