Cinderella (2015) vs. Maleficent (2014)

... or to make it quick: how "good" looses lamely against "evil" in the last two classic Perrault/Grimm adaptations. Even though the critics' result is the opposite. Not for me. Why? Well, let's see ...

I've always thought that "Cinderella" and "Sleeping Beauty" are the most boring stories in the "damsel in distress" set (at least in Snow White we have a poisonous apple and dwarfs, in Red Riding Hood a disguised wolf, and in Rapunzel we can study the hair thread toughness in domestic constructions - e.g., ladders). So, I didn't expect much neither from "Maleficent", nor from "Cinderella". The surprise came, however, from where I wasn't expecting anything at all. After all in Cinderella we still have something: the glass shoe search, but in Sleeping Beauty... : a curse, the damsel falls asleep, the prince arrives, the magic kiss, end of story. Nothing to create at least some fake suspense before the expected happy-end. Well, no .. in "Maleficent" the tale is a bit more complicated. The script takes quite a distance from the classic story. As main action thread we're following the life of the evil fairy godmother who drops the curse on the little princess, (spoiler:) and after gets to regret it, and after ... well, after it's written in the book :) (not really). Let's say just that the ending .. or better said the story climax is surprising. Probably so surprising that the critics pretty much bashed "Maleficent"... Not the same thing for "Cinderella", which seems to be relatively well received by now. Why not? We have a classic tale, told in the finest detail, with little digression. So that children will still enjoy their dreams after. No nightmare potential here.

I can't say that "Cinderella" is a bad movie. Kenneth Branagh managed to get the max out of a story by keeping it as it is: light. For bedtime. With a relaxed tone, a good casting, a decent script, cool effects, everything in its place. I would've liked more than that. I did not expect to see the unwritten side as in "Maleficent", knowing that Branagh doesn't cross much the borders of the book, but I did hope for something ... I don't know ... More evilish evil characters, more tension when looking for the girl with the right foot ... Something that I've seen around 20 years ago, when this guy was trashed by critics for what I consider still to be the best "Frankenstein" (yup, the one with DeNiro). Way too much drama, intensity and depth they said it was there. That's what's missing in "Cinderella".

The conclusion is that if you want a pure bedtime story, you're probably in the apparently larger target group of viewers for who the critics recommend "Cinderella". If you're open minded enough to accept a cinematic approach that's more complex than the literary piece (completely opposite to the usual book-to-screen simplification) then ... choose the "dark" side ;)

Rating: Maleficent - 4, Cinderella - 3