One of the major criticisms to blight almost all of Disney’s live-action remakes is that the supplementary material used to buff them out to feature length doesn’t add anything to the story, and it’s probably one of the major reasons why so few of them failed to generate sequels. Maleficent: Mistress of Evil exists, but can anyone remember what happens in it off the top of their heads?
Arriving five and a half years after the opening installment netted an impressive $758 million at the box office, Joachim Rønning stepped behind the camera to tell the latest chapter in the story of Angelina Jolie’s scenery-devouring title character. In the end, takings dropped by almost a quarter of a billion dollars second time out, while reviews also took a nosedive.
Jolie is good value as always, but it’s one of those movies that’s so completely and utterly forgettable you can barely remember any of the preceding events by the time you leave the theater, never mind three and a half years on from its release; which itself feels like it came around an eternity ago.
That might be one of the reasons why Mistress of Evil has cast a spell upon Disney Plus subscribers this week, with FlixPatrol naming it as one of the platform’s most-watched films in multiple countries around the world. There’s been whispers of a threequel for a while now, but it’s hard to imagine anyone being left devastated beyond belief if history only remembers the Maleficent saga comprising of two entries.