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'Maleficent'

Angelina Jolie, Elle Fanning

Rated PG

Two-and-a-half out of five stars

Maybe it's too soon to say the tide has shifted definitively. But it's certainly been a unique time for fairy-tale villains.

After hundreds of years of moral clarity, suddenly we're getting a new look at these evil creatures, who are actually turning out to be complex beings, and not that bad at all. Really, they've just been misunderstood. (And, by the way, those charming princes? Highly overrated.)

The most obvious recent example is "Frozen," the animated Disney blockbuster that showed us how the Snow Queen, long portrayed as an icy-hearted villain, was actually a tragic victim of circumstance, with a pure and loving heart. And now we have "Maleficent," which tells us that one of the most evil characters in all of pop culture is equally vulnerable and misunderstood.

Plus, she's gorgeous. Duh. She's Angelina Jolie. 

 

All this is a rather seismic development in fairytale-dom. There are numerous versions of "Sleeping Beauty," stemming back even before Charles Perrault's from 1697, but the fairy who casts an angry spell on the baby princess, dooming her to prick her finger, has always been, well, just nasty.

But now, 55 years after Disney introduced the character named Maleficent in its 1959 classic film -- and colored her skin an eerie green -- the studio is back with a live-action (not to mention 3-D) Maleficent who's more superheroine than evil fairy. Think Maleficent by way of Lara Croft.

And though Maleficent is no longer green-skinned, it's hard not to think of another green-skinned villainess who's also been rehabilitated, by means of the durable Broadway hit "Wicked": the witch Elphaba from "The Wizard of Oz," who, it turns out, we just didn't know enough about.

And so it is in "Maleficent," in which director Robert Stromberg and screenwriter Linda Woolverton take us back to the fairy's youth to better understand her. She's a plucky young thing with lovely wings and bright pink lipstick, which will turn blood-red when she becomes an adult (the fairy world clearly isn't lacking for cosmetics.)

One day, she meets a young man from that other, darker world, where humans live. The two form a strong bond. But the ugliest human emotions -- jealousy and ambition -- will intervene. Young Stefan will grow into the power-hungry older Stefan (the wild-eyed South African actor Sharlto Copley.) And his stunning betrayal of Maleficent will instantly harden her, turning her into the villainess we recognize.

Alas, the story's still all about a guy, in the end.