Maleficent: Mistress of Evil Blu-ray Review – Short Extras, Great Look

Five years have passed in Maleficent: Mistress of Evil and there is more trouble between humans and fairy folk. Aurora (Elle Fanning) is engaged to Prince Phillip (Harris Dickinson) but Phillip’s mother powerful queen Ingrith (Michelle Pfeiffer) claims Aurora as her own making Maleficent, who considers Aurora her goddaughter, beyond angry. Aurora is torn between her fiance’s family and devotion to Maleficent and the Moorfolk. Ingrith’s secret plan to permanently separate human and fairy folk can only be foiled if dark fairy Maleficent and Aurora reunite, gather new allies and face their enemies in order to protect their shared magical lands.

Maleficent: Mistress of Evil Trailer

Grab a Fairy

Late at night, three thieves sneak across the river that divides the kingdom of Ulstead from the magical lands of the Moorfolk. Their target? Some teeny tiny fairy folk. They manage to capture one and take it back to the castle where they hand it over for money to a mysterious creature.

Aurora is Queen of the MoorsCourtesy of Disney

Queen Aurora

Aurora is now the human queen of the magical Moorfolk where she rules with kindness and sensitivity. Her godmother, the dark fairy Maleficent remains peaceful despite the fact that humankind still thinks she is evil. Suddenly Prince Phillip of Ulstead arrives and asks Aurora to marry him. They share a desire for peace between humans and magical folk. Maleficent’s shapeshifting raven/human sidekick Diaval (Sam Riley) overhears and decides Maleficent should know. She is furious and flies away in a huff.

Philip will propose to AuroraCourtesy of Disney

Invitation

Phillip’s father King John (Robert Lindsay) wants peace with the Moorfolk but Philip’s friend and a general in the royal army Percival (David Gyasi) believes they and Maleficent are evil threats. Learning the engagement news Phillip’s mom Queen Ingrith seems to approve the marriage and invites Aurora and her godmother Maleficent to a dinner at the castle.

Ingrith would like to claim Aurora as hersCourtesy of Disney

Disturbing Dinner

Aurora begs Maleficent to give Phillip a chance to prove his love so she agrees to try to “make nice” at the dinner. She is sad but complies when Aurora asks her to wear a kind of veil to cover her horns. Before dinner Ingrith checks in on a little person named Lickspittle (Warwick Davis) who is experimenting on the kidnapped fairies. We see that Ingrith also has a group of workers slaving away in the dungeon making weapons! At dinner, sly insults from Ingrith get worse and worse. When she says that Aurora will now be her daughter, Maleficent loses it and the king falls to the floor. Ingrith says that Maleficent put a spell/curse on him. Sadly, Aurora believes her.

Maleficent's powers wreck the dinnerCourtesy of Disney

Iron can Hurt!

Angry Maleficent flies away and is shot by Gerda, one of Ingrith’s followers, with an iron bullet. Badly injured, she falls into the river and is rescued by a winged being that looks very much like her. Gerda sees this and reports it to Ingrith. Not knowing, Aurora swears to Ingrith that she will find Maleficent and convince her to break the curse on the king. Maleficent is taken to the underground world of the Dark Fae people. Their leader Conall (Chewitel Ejiofor) tells her that these are her people. They’ve had to hide here from humans for centuries since the time they lived all over the earth. Conall wants peace but his lieutenant Borra (Ed Skrien) is fed up and wants war and powerful Maleficent’s assistance.

Conall saves MaleficentCourtesy of Disney

Wedding Plans

Not finding a trace of Maleficent, Aurora returns to the castle where Ingrith plans the wedding in three days. Everyone, Moorfolk and human is invited. Aurora feels very controlled by Ingrith. Lickspittle shows Ingrith that he has used the fairy dust from the captives and mixed it with Iron filings that can easily kill Moorfolk. He demonstrates by sprinkling it on a fairy and the tiny being disintegrates.

Elle Fanning works with her director on setCourtesy of Disney

War!

Connal is gravely injured and Maleficent returns to the Moorlands and sees that humans have used a mystery weapon to destroy some of the lands so she favors war. All of the Moorfolk are going to the castle for the wedding. It has to be a trap! She will join Borra and make war on the humans. Meanwhile Aurora has discovered both Lickspittle’s laboratory and the trapped fairies as well as Ingrith’s weapons room and the ancient spinning wheel with spindle that originally cursed her. On touching it she sees a vision confirming that Ingrith used the still active curse to down the king and blame it on Maleficent.

Maleficent is ready to war on the humansCourtesy of Disney

Peace?

Aurora sets out to warn and free Moorfolk trapped in the church awaiting the wedding. They are being slowly poisoned by the fairy dust/iron concoction pumped inside. Will Maleficent and Aurora make up? Will Ingrith win against the Dark Fae attacking the castle or face a horrible end? Will Aurora and Phillip finally get married and will the two worlds ever live in true peace?

Special Extra Features

• Origins of the Fey is a short but effective extra centering of the Dark Fey with Angelia Jolie speaking on the horns, past and present of the people, the locales they are from, why they are larger than other fairies, make-up etc.  Nice.
• Aurora’s Wedding – Elle Fanning talks about the huge cast, her amazing dress which we see up close and walking down the aisle with Angelina. Cool

Will Philip and Aurora ever unite their kingdoms?Courtesy of Disney

• If You Had Wings is really entertaining and informative as we see Angelina and other fey and flying folks up on rigs and wires being flipped and flown…then we see the finished product. Lots of on set action as she explains that different fey have different flying styles and how she learned to use her CGI “wings” for various moods and expressions. Really cool extra.
• Maleficent: Mistress of Evil VFX Reel features the producer showing us what was actually on set for the actors and what was filled in by effects done in computer. We see both. Fascinating movie magic.

Michelle Pfeiffer is given directionCourtesy of Disney

• Outtakes are funny as actors deal with broken props, falling down, dancing on set, making silly faces and more.
• Extended Scenes – only two of them involving the Queen talking more to Aurora and the Queen being a tough dance master insisting that Aurora get all the dances down pat for the post wedding ball. Nice but not really needed in the film.
• Music Video – Bebe Rexha sings “You Can’t Stop the Girl” with various fairy tale backgrounds – beautiful.

Wrapping Up

This Blu-ray version of the film looks and sounds wonderful and extras are short but entertaining. There is no director commentary however.

Ingrith orders her lieutenant to kill MaleficentCourtesy of Disney

As we said in our review when the film was in theaters, “Maleficent: Mistress of Evil is gorgeous to look at and peopled with striking new characters and cute critters. Costumes are lush and amazing and special visual effects make it all believable. Angelina and Elle continue to really sell their roles with flair and there are touching moments between them. Michelle Pfeiffer is effective bouncing from kind warmth to brutal wickedness but, having most of the more melodramatic dialogue, she seems way over-the-top at times. A few new characters are introduced but wasted.

An awkward meeting at the palaceCourtesy of Disney

The movie is a bit too long with sequences that could easily have been tightened to run at a better pace. How long can we watch flying Dark Fae flit around dodging killer red dust?  You don’t want all the visual wonder to become boring and, at times, it does.  There are several story devices thrown in to conveniently solve a problem that just don’t make much sense.

Aurora hopes to reunite with MaleficentCourtesy of Disney

The themes/lessons of tolerance and the acceptance of diversity are BIG in films lately.. and worthy but there are a few very dark moments in which tiny fairies are hurt or killed that might be upsetting to younger audience members.

If you love the Maleficent character or Aurora or just cool special visual effects, you will want to collect this new take home edition.  We award four stars.

Maleficent: Mistress of Evil Blu-ray Rating: 

Courtesy of Disney

Maleficent: Mistress of Evil is now available to take home!

Tell Us All!

Are you into the Maleficent movies? Do you love lots of extras on Blu-rays or don’t care? Do you like the way this movie wraps everything up? Share your opinion with others… Comment!

By: Lynn Barker