A baby princess named Aurora, who is destined to marry a Prince named Phillip, is cursed by an evil witch named Malficent who proclaims before her 16th birthday, she will prick her finger on a spindle of a spinning wheel and fall into a forever deep sleep, only to be awaken by true loves first kiss. Three fairies decide to help the doomed Princess by hiding her in a cottage deep in the woods and raise her until her 16th birthday. On the day of her sixteenth Birthday, she meets Prince Phillip and the two fall in love. However, Aurora doesn't know that the man she met is a Prince, and the Prince doesn't know that the peasant girl he met is the Princess that he's destined to marry. Maleficent finally finds Aurora and succeeds in carrying out her curse. It is now up to Prince Phillip and the three fairies to stop Maleficent and awake Aurora from her deep sleep.
Let's start with our Princess. I'm going to be honest, whenever I think about the stereotypical Disney Princess that does nothing but looks good, sings to the animals, cries, and in the end has to be rescued, this is the Princess that immediately comes to mind. Granted, she has a beautiful design, a lovable personality, and a heck of a singing voice (Belonging to Opera singer Mary Costa), but she's still a bland character that does nothing. Let's look at the previous Disney Princesses before her. While carrying the typical Disney Princess cliches, we at least learned a few things from them. We learned the benefits of loving and carrying from Snow White; we learned that your kindness and hard work will be rewarded in the end from Cinderella; we learn nothing and I mean nothing from Aurora! The only thing she does is while falling in love with the man he met at first sight, she's hesitant towards him since he's a stranger, but tells him to meet her where her guardians will be present. Ok, understandable, but at the same time, let's just say the last place I invite anybody I met for only a few minutes is at my own home.
Now we move onto the Prince, who is actually the first Disney Prince that we ever spend time with, when all the previous ones were just soon to be trophies for our Princess. When we first meet him, he has a fun, charming, and smooth personality, however, that all ends fast since the second act of the film decides to give him no dialogue at all, not even so much as a grunt. As you may have guessed, he gets boring and bland really fast. Does he fight in that awesome climatic battle at the end of the film, NO, the fairies and his horse do at least 85% of the work for him. His facial expressions get old fast after a while too, in fact, his horse has more character and expressions than him, even before he stops talking. Despite our romantic couple being bland and boring characters, I still felt a connection between them. It's not as special as the relationships in later Disney films, but it's there. Yeah, their love story is a misunderstanding love story which knowing that formula, you know the characters will get together in the end and will live happily ever after. With that said, I still think it does fit within the context of the story since it's done throughout the film instead of being just a tear dropping sequence that lasts for only a few minutes.
The Three Fairies in the film to many people are seen as the supporting characters, but just like how I described the mice and the King and Duke of being the real main characters in Disney's last Princess film "Cinderella", that's pretty much how I feel about these Three Fairies. They get more screen time than our two romantic leads, they have more character than our two romantic leads, they take care of Aurora, and again they do most of the heroic work for our Prince. So this adaptation to the classic Fairy Tale is done through the Fairies point of view. The fairies themselves are actually one of the most memorable characters in the movie. Not only do they show up more and do more than our two romantic leads, but they're also really funny, humble, likable and all around enjoyable. You have the leader and brains of the trio Flora the red Fairy, you have the innocent and sweet Green Fairy Fauna, and you have the carrying, but hot headed Blue Fairy Merryweather. Every scene with them together is always fun to watch and for me personally, the funniest and most memorable sequence in the whole movie that involves these Fairies is when they prepare a surprise Birthday party for Aurora. They go from making a cake and dress by using traditional methods instead of using magic which becomes a huge mess, to finally using their magic to make the perfect dress and cake, which eventually turns into chaos as Flora and Merryweather fight over on what color the dress should be (Which becomes a great running gag throughout the film). That scene is one of my favorite scenes in the movie and for not seeing it after all these years, I still find it to be a really funny sequence. Oh, and here's a little fun fact for you Disney fans out there. Two of the Fairies are actually voiced by actresses who have lent their voices to many Disney films. Flora is voiced by Verna Felton, who has done the voice of The Queen Of Hearts in "Alice In Wonderland"; Aunt Sarah in "Lady And The Tramp"; the leader of the Elephant pack and Dumbo's Mother in "Dumbo"; The Colonel Elephant's Wife in "The Jungle Book"; and The Fairy Godmother in "Cinderella" (Which I'll admit, her voice acting and mannerisms as Flora sounds so identical to her voice acting for The Fairy Godmother, that it becomes a bit distracting at times). The other actress is Barbara Luddy as Merryweather, who has served the voice as Kanga in "The Many Adventures Of Winnie The Pooh"; and Lady from "Lady And The Tramp".
The other most memorable character in the film, is the villain Maleficent who is also voiced by an actress who lent her voice in a few Disney projects. She is voiced by Eleanor Audley, who has done the voice of Lady Tremaine (The Stepmother) in "Cinderella"; and Madame Leota in the famous Disney ride "The Haunted Mansion". As I said earlier, it's been years since I've seen this film, and while I remember her being the villain, I completely forgot how awesome of a villain she is, despite her evil motivation being revenge for not being invited to a party. She has class, she's scary, she's powerful, she's cruel, she's suttle, and she can change her form into a scary monstrous fire breathing dragon, as well as a few other things. The voice acting from Eleanor Audley and the design for this villain is really what makes her such an awesome and iconic Disney villain. Now her henchman, while having cool designs, they got to be some of the lamest henchmen to have ever worked for a great villain. You're telling me that for 16 years they've been looking for a baby, are they that stupid? In the words of Maleficent herself "Oh, they're hopeless. A disgrace to the forces of evil." Where did Maleficent find these goons, and why does almost every single classic villain get such lame henchman? She also has a Pet Raven that accompaines her and let me tell you, that has got to be the most faithful and cool looking pet to any classic villain, as well as accomplishing things that her henchman couldn't even do.
The last of the characters are the Two Kings, which to be honest aren't that memorable or interesting outside of that hilarious yet pointless scene when the two are celebrating while getting drunk with their minstrel. Yeah, definitely wouldn't fly in todays standards. King Stefan, who is Aurora's Father is just as boring as the two leads; his Queen is more boring and bland than the two romantic leads; and Prince Phillip's Father, while having more personality and character than Aurora's parents, he becomes just as forgettable as I let the days go by.
The music is fantastic! Ok, when it comes to musical numbers we only get one and that's the song "Once Upon A Dream". What, not the song "Skumps" with the two drunk Kings? That's played more for humor than it is a song sequence. The "Once Upon A Dream" number is one of the best and romantic numbers to ever be put into a Disney film. The scene (As cliche as some may point out in Disney films) works within the film's romantic fairy tale atmosphere; it's beautifully sung by our two leads; the animation when they're dancing gives it a beautiful dream like look; the lyrics are unforgettable; and the music being in the tune on a famous ballet by Tchaikovsky called "The Garland Waltz". The chorus throughout the film is phenomenal. It's beautiful, it's haunting, it's uplifting, it's emotional, it's one of the many things that makes the film so epic. The score also brings such great atmosphere as well. It can be cheerful, scary, dramatic, sad and very powerful.
Finally, there's the animation in the film, and the animation is so incredible that in my opinion, Disney wouldn't create such artistic animation until "The Little Mermaid". Not only does it look like a Fairy Tale, but it also looks like seeing paintings of the Medieval times coming to life, it has a tapestry art look to it, it's colorful, it's dark, it looks very dreamlike, it's big, it's fun, and it's very magical. It's really just incredible animation and mixing it with that beautiful music is what makes the look and feel of the film so outstanding. Some of the highlights with the animation is the scenes when all the Fairies (Including Maleficent) give baby Princess Aurora their gifts; Aurora being lured by Maleficent; the "Once Upon A Dream" sequence; the Fairies preparing Aurora's surprise party; the sequence when the Fairies cast their sleeping spell; Maleficent showing Prince Phillip his future; and of course the climactic battle, which to me is the best part of the movie. Yeah, the Prince may not be doing much of the work, but it's still a cool and kickass sequence. The dramatic music, the sound effects, the obstacles that our heroes face, the energy and creative effort put into the animation, the suspense, and the action, for me it's the number one highlight of the movie!
The film has some of Disney's greatest animation, wonderful music, a great villain, and fun and memorable supporting characters (Mainly being the Fairies). If the romantic leads weren't so boring, or at least gave the Prince more of a personality outside of his meeting scene with Aurora (Since Aurora is mostly asleep throughout the second half of the film) than this film would get my highest rating.
RATING 4/5
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