With under a month to go until the release of Maleficent, Disney has premiered some new posters for the film. This batch includes Angelina Jolie looking as fierce as ever, Sam Riley as the shape-shifting Diaval, and another look at Elle Fanning as Princess Aurora.
These character sheets, which also include one of the Pixies and one of King Stefan (Sharlto Copley), aren’t especially impressive, especially by the standards of fantasy film promotion. However, they’re still decent pieces of artwork that supplement the previous materials that we’ve seen quite nicely.
It’s no secret that many recent fairytale re-tellings have been rather dreadful, but from what we’ve seen so far, Maleficent has the potential to buck that trend. Far too many similar films have tried to be gritty simply because that’s the hot trend in Hollywood these days. While Disney’s upcoming effort will definitely be a darker version of the original tale, it isn’t the sort of story where that will feel out of place. Maleficent is an extremely dark and complex character, so to see things through her eyes means that the story is going to have to be much grittier than the original cartoon version.
We’ve got Maleficent on our list of must-see films for this summer, and I fully support that choice. It’s PG, so it’s the sort of thing you can take the whole family to, but it appears like it’ll have enough action to satisfy older viewers as well. While these posters aren’t enough to change anyone’s mind about the film, they’re another sign that this movie is on the way, and that fact alone should be enough to excite just about anyone.
