The biggest problem with the movie is how fake it is, on every level imaginable. CG is overused, none of it convincing in appearance or effective in execution. There are fake-looking characters, fake-looking landscapes, and actors casting fake-looking magic as they stand in fake-looking digital sets.
There are fake emotions from every actor. Presumably, the heightened style of performance was intended to evoke the sense of a fairy tale, but instead it simply feels like everyone is overacting. Angelina Jolie, as the title character, has but two gears: cartoonish rage and mawkish near-crying. Sharlto Copley -- who really ought to be able to work with CG after his District 9 experience -- hits just one note repeatedly (and loudly) as the dully menacing King Stefan. Elle Fanning is out of her depth as doe-eyed Aurora, as fake as her surroundings.
Though the movie runs barely more than 90 minutes, I was checking my watch before the halfway point. And I really shouldn't have bothered sticking around for the ending, which Disney simply cribbed from its own recent hit, Frozen (a film infinitely better on all levels).
I can really say only one thing in support of Maleficent -- it has tremendous visual continuity with the original animated Sleeping Beauty. The look of the characters, from the villain herself to the young Aurora, and especially the three color-coded good fairies, is a real ringer for the 1959 original designs. Perhaps that's part of why the film looks so false, though, as the art direction was trying too hard to mimic something that never originally existed in the real world.
There's nothing to recommend here. And if you're at all a fan of Sleeping Beauty, you may actually owe it to yourself to stay away. I give Maleficent a D-.
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