Maleficent
Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures | Release Date: May 30, 2014 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
56
METASCORE
Mixed or average reviews based on 44 Critic Reviews
Positive:
19
Mixed:
21
Negative:
4
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
83
Charlotte ObserverLawrence ToppmanMay 29, 2014
Yet nothing in their visually stimulating film registers as strongly as Jolie’s enigmatic, ever-changing face. Read full review
80
New York Daily NewsJoe NeumaierMay 29, 2014
Angelina Jolie is so wickedly enchanting in the magical, magnificent Maleficent, you may not notice how transporting this female-driven blockbuster really is. Read full review
80
The Hollywood ReporterSheri LindenMay 28, 2014
A few bumpy patches notwithstanding, the new feature is an exquisitely designed, emotionally absorbing work of dark enchantment. Read full review
75
Portland OregonianMarc MohanMay 31, 2014
A moderately enchanting, sometimes thought-provoking corrective to the flaws in the story that inspired it. Read full review
75
Philadelphia InquirerSteven ReaMay 30, 2014
Jolie's Maleficent is magnificent. Read full review
75
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Kate TaylorMay 29, 2014
In truth, you just can’t wait until the wicked Jolie returns to the screen. Whether a malevolent twinkle illuminates her beady eye or a heartbreaking tear rolls down her alabaster cheek, she is the film’s power. Read full review
75
ReelViewsJames BerardinelliMay 29, 2014
Calling Maleficent a "modern-day classic," as some have asserted, is overreaching. The production is engaging and appealing but only the passage of time will determine whether it holds in the memory with the strength of its animated predecessor. Read full review
75
RogerEbert.comMatt Zoller SeitzMay 29, 2014
The movie is a mess, but it's a rich mess. It has weight. It matters. Read full review
75
San Francisco ChronicleMick LaSalleMay 29, 2014
Maleficent imparts a feeling of enchantment. Here is a world that's strange and beautiful. Read full review
75
Miami HeraldRene RodriguezMay 29, 2014
The result is a rare live-action Disney movie that merits comparison to its beloved feature-length cartoons. Read full review
70
SalonAndrew O'HehirMay 31, 2014
Whatever its flaws, Maleficent is a family-friendly Disney adventure that offers a relaunched and thoroughly delightful Angelina Jolie. Read full review
70
SlateDana StevensMay 30, 2014
This is really a movie about the evil spell Jolie casts on us — it’s both a celebration and a demonstration of her formidable movie star might. Read full review
70
Los Angeles TimesBetsy SharkeyMay 29, 2014
Though it never plays like a polemic, the film has so much it wants to say the emotional power that might have made it a classic is undercut. Read full review
67
Austin ChronicleLouis BlackJun 9, 2014
Imaginatively, it places all the known elements of the story in different contexts, completely recasting this familiar fairy tale into a more poignant and resonant work. Read full review
67
Tampa Bay TimesSteve PersallMay 29, 2014
Maleficent feels spit-balled into more directions than barely 90 minutes of story time can adequately cover. It's once upon a time, happily ever after and a lot of undeveloped drama in between. Read full review
67
Entertainment WeeklyKeith StaskiewiczMay 28, 2014
The characters are boiled down to their essentials, the humor is timelessly broad, and Jolie's at her best when she's curling her claws and elongating her vowels like a black-sabbath Tallulah Bankhead. Read full review
63
Washington PostAnn HornadayMay 29, 2014
For all its limitations, Maleficent manages to be improbably entertaining to watch, due solely to its title character. As befits a star of her regal standing and superb self-awareness, Angelina Jolie has managed to bend even the Brothers Grimm to her indomitable will. Read full review
63
Boston GlobeTom RussoMay 29, 2014
While this is Jolie’s show, obviously — and she’s terrifically arch — the surprising dearth of other compelling characters doesn’t offer much distraction when things get off track. Read full review
63
Chicago TribuneMichael PhillipsMay 29, 2014
This is almost entirely Angelina Jolie's show...this is a performance that goes from point A to point B without seeming rote, or ho-hum. Read full review
60
New Orleans Times-PicayuneMike ScottMay 30, 2014
Enchanting enough to cast a spell over fans, of Jolie, of Disney, of "Sleeping Beauty" -- and of pure, cinematic escapism. Read full review
60
The New York TimesManohla DargisMay 29, 2014
Consciously or not, coherently or not, Maleficent tells a new kind of story about how we live now, not once upon another time. And it does so by suggesting, among other things, that budding girls and older women are not natural foes, even if that’s what fairy tales, Hollywood and the world like to tell us. Read full review
60
Time OutJoshua RothkopfMay 28, 2014
If you go into Maleficent expecting Jolie to be the badass of Sleeping Beauty, you’re going to get burned. Read full review
60
CineVueJoe WalshMay 28, 2014
Despite its pitfalls, Maleficent entertains because of Jolie, who holds the wavering threads of Stromberg's spinning wheel together with aplomb. Read full review
60
TheWrapAlonso DuraldeMay 28, 2014
The aggressively unpleasant visuals certainly detract from the overall film, but Maleficent makes for a fascinating entry in an ongoing wave of projects that give “bad” women of literature a chance to present their side of the story. Read full review
60
The TelegraphRobbie CollinMay 27, 2014
The action sequences are executed with rhythm and punch, and our heroine swoops and swirls around like Iron Man in a sheath dress. Maleficent may be short on true enchantment, but until we find a superhero who can pull off a black silk cocktail gown in battle, she’s very welcome. Read full review
58
IndieWireEric KohnMay 30, 2014
It’s a dazzling showcase of fantasy-based filmmaking in the 21st century that also manages a feeble attempt at injecting feminist politics into an antiquated narrative. Yet its eventual climax strains from the obviousness of these efforts. Read full review
58
Christian Science MonitorPeter RainerMay 30, 2014
Director Robert Stromberg, making his debut as a director after supervising the visual effects for movies like “Alice in Wonderland” and “Avatar,” lacks the transcendent touch. Read full review
58
HitfixDrew McWeenyMay 29, 2014
While I can see how there is a version of this film that might be able to successfully grapple with its central metaphor, I'm not sure Stromberg is the guy to make that movie. Read full review
58
The A.V. ClubIgnatiy VishnevetskyMay 29, 2014
More well-intentioned than accomplished. Read full review
50
New York Magazine (Vulture)Bilge EbiriMay 30, 2014
Jolie’s commitment to the part is admirable: She gives this Maleficent a real emotional urgency. But the rest of the movie lets her down. Read full review
50
USA TodayClaudia PuigMay 29, 2014
It fails to live up to its early promise, mostly because of an uneven tone and murky character development Read full review
50
The DissolveTasha RobinsonMay 29, 2014
Maleficent is out of balance in all sorts of ways. The effective silent sequences conflict with the frustratingly talky ones. The new material fits poorly with moments that directly quote the classic. Read full review
50
Arizona RepublicBill GoodykoontzMay 29, 2014
Jolie's performance so overshadows the rest of the cast (and the rest of the movie) that you sometimes feel as if the other characters are, like us, just standing around watching her. This is not, however, the fault of the other actors. It's the fault of screenwriter Linda Woolverton, who doesn't give them much to do that's challenging or interesting. Read full review
50
McClatchy-Tribune News ServiceRoger MooreMay 28, 2014
Impressive. And violent. Just not a lot of fun. Read full review
50
ObserverMatthew KasselMay 28, 2014
Why tell the Sleeping Beauty story anew? With this half-hearted film, Mr. Stromberg, the visual effects wizard behind such big-budget blockbusters as "Oz the Great and Powerful," "Alice in Wonderland" and "Avatar," can’t provide an answer. Read full review
50
VarietyAndrew BarkerMay 28, 2014
Uncertain of tone, and bearing visible scarring from what one imagines were multiple rewrites, the film fails to probe the psychology of its subject or set up a satisfying alternate history, but it sure is nice to look at for 97 minutes. Read full review
42
The PlaylistDrew TaylorMay 28, 2014
Maleficent desperately tries to create a character whose motivation you will understand and empathize with. But the screenplay and direction are such a tangled, thorny patch of conflicting ideas that it's hard to tell what that motivation is supposed to be. Read full review
40
EmpireOlly RichardsJun 2, 2014
If this tiresome yarn is the ‘true’ story of one of Disney’s most popular villains then, please, give us colourful lies and happy ignorance. Read full review
40
Wall Street JournalJoe MorgensternMay 29, 2014
This icon of witchcraft can't save a production that's suffocatingly elaborate yet insufficiently bewitching. Read full review
40
Village VoiceAmy NicholsonMay 27, 2014
With more actual grrrl power, Maleficent would be a bold redo. Instead, it's a beautiful snooze, a story that hints at the darkness underneath our fairy tales and tarnishes the idea of true love without quite daring to say what's really on its mind: that even the best of us might not live happily ever after. Read full review
38
Chicago Sun-TimesRichard RoeperJun 2, 2014
Maleficent is an admittedly great-looking, sometimes creepy, often plodding and utterly unconvincing re-imagining of a famous romantic fairy tale as a female empowerment metaphor. Read full review
38
Rolling StonePeter TraversMay 29, 2014
Jolie comes to this party ready to bite, but the movie muzzles her. Even at 97 minutes, Maleficent is still one long, laborious slog. Read full review
38
Slant MagazineR. Kurt OsenlundMay 29, 2014
We may have all wanted to know the story behind those famed horns, but the mystery was far preferable to having Maleficent de-fanged and de-clawed in the process. Read full review
30
TimeRichard CorlissMay 30, 2014
Except for Angelina Jolie, exemplary as the fairy badmother who laid a narcotic curse on an infant princess, this pricey live-action drama is a dismaying botch. Read full review
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