…there are long stretches where little or nothing happens and you desperately want the director to get on with it. As mentioned, the stress is on the visuals even though the 3D doesn’t contribute anything positive to experience.

Angelina Jolie breathes some life into the film with her performance other wise this Sleeping Beauty doesn’t have a great deal to keep you awake.

The film is Angelina Jolie all the way, from the story to her acting to her menacing ways, the actress gives her audience more than one reason to a make a beeline to the theatres. One can’t help but notice how beautiful Elle Fanning has grown up to be. As Princess Aurora, she does justice to the role. Plus, to add the cherry on the top, is the visually-pleasing cinematography and of course, the magic that lies beneath.

Inspired by Charles Perrault’s harrowing story “La Belle au bois dormant” and the sanitized fairytale written by the Brothers Grimm, Maleficent is a feel good retelling of Disney’s 1959 classic film Sleeping Beauty about the wicked witch who places a curse on a hapless infant.

The film is definitely better than the misbegotten Snow White and the Huntsman and the other recent fairytales trying to have an adult spin, but it surely isn’t a classic. It’s a missed opportunity.

Stromberg, an Oscar-winning production designer, gives us a lot to look at – luminous pixies, magical moors, a crow that takes on many avatars and lots of intriguing creatures, big and small. Even Maleficent’s incredible wings have personality.

I wish some of that had rubbed off on the writing.

The reboot’s real interest is in conjuring up a tender relationship between a fairy, a princess and a crow, with enough twists to save a well-worn fairy tale from the curse of overuse.

When the lights come back on in the end, it’s unlikely that much will stay with you, apart from Jolie’s scorching presence. She deserved better, and so did we.

Maleficent is pretty much Angelina Jolie’s vehicle all the way, because looking at how she fits this role down to the letter, it’s hard to imagine anyone else inhabiting the character of a good person-turned-evil as well as she does in this film. Fanning imbues her character with a freshness that balances off nicely against Maleficient’s demeanour. All in all, an imaginative take on the old classic.

A visual treat while not being particularly subversive

Maleficent is fun for its appealing visuals — especially in the forest — and for watching Jolie. But that’s not enough to make the whole film interesting. As the minutes tick by, you might even start feeling a bit like Sleeping Beauty herself comes to feel: Drowsy.

Maleficent will please Jolie fans, so watch it if you like dark fantasies about mystical creatures.

Here was a chance to really add some life, some humanity to an iconic character, and Jolie squanders it with an expressionless and dispassionate performance. Perhaps she did this film just to cash in on Disney’s rejuvenated box-office clout. Viewers, however, should prove her wrong by simply re-watching Frozen.

Go and watch the magnificent Maleficent on the big screen! It will transport you to another world and trust me you wouldn’t want to come back.

Packed with lovely visuals and a predictable plot, this film is a one-woman show that could have been a little less brooding. It could have been brilliant but it chose to stick to its seat with its safety belt tightly binding it down.

Its sad when a film fails to realise its own potential.

Maleficent is almost magnificent.