Movie reviews: Maleficent, Edge of Tomorrow, Jimmy’s Hall

They say the old ones are the best but Maleficent (PG) offers a striking new take on the Sleeping Beauty story. It opens in fabulous fairytale mode, when we meet the young Maleficent (Isobelle Molloy), a fairy who lives in a magical kingdom. Her encounter with human boy Stefan (Michael Higgins) offers hope for a future rapprochement between the human and fairy kingdoms, but when the grown-up Stefan (Sharlto Copley) grows up to become a power-hungry king who betrays Maleficent (Angelina Jolie) in a brutal way, the scene is set for Maleficent to wreak a terrible revenge. So far so conventional, but while the story is strongly rooted in the folktales of Charles Perrault and the Brothers Grimm, screenwriter Linda Wolverton and director Robert Stromberg have a different kind of fable in mind. The iconic twisted horns immediately identify Jolie as the Maleficent of Disney’s animated classic from 1959, but this Maleficent is a far more complex character than her previous outings have suggested, not least in her relationship with Aurora (Elle Fanning), Stefan’s daughter and the infant whom Maleficent places a curse upon. Fanning is given little to do other than smile, simper and promote wholesome innocence, but to give her anything more would have been a waste of time, so completely does Jolie dominate the screen with a brilliantly icy (and occasionally hilarious) portrayal of nuanced evil. Very young children might baulk at the intensity of the battle sequences that bookend the story, but overall this is a hugely entertaining and inventive re-imagining of one of the oldest stories in the Western canon.