Maleficent: Mistress of Evil, released on October 18, received a meager $36 million in the box office during its opening weekend, which is hardly adequate to justify its $185 million budget. The sequel, which comes five years after the original, a box office success, seems to have faced the same fate as other late sequels such as The Lego Movie 2, Pacific Rim: Uprising, and Godzilla: King of the Monsters, all who flopped at the box office the second time around. 

Maleficent, portrayed by Angelina Jolie, travels to the castle to celebrate the recent engagement of her adoptive daughter, Aurora (Elle Fanning) to Prince Philip (Harris Dickinson). There, she meets Aurora’s future mother-in-law, Queen Ingris (Michelle Pfeiffer), who appears to have a devious plan to destroy all the land’s fairies. Hoping to stop her, Maleficent joins forces with a group of seasoned warriors who have been outcasted by society in order to battle the powerful Queen and her armies. 

The first movie, Maleficent, was incredibly inspiring and retold the infamous Sleeping Beauty in an entirely new way. It was a classic coming of age story in which the notorious villain, Maleficent, was portrayed as a protagonist that was demonized by the tall tale. With such a good reputation to upkeep, the sequel appeared to fall flat. Although the new movie was certainly entertaining with the continuation of fans’ favorite relationships, sprinkles of humor, and special effects that leave viewers in awe, it seemed to lack the emotional depth that the first movie so proudly displayed. 

Although, the sequel appeared to have a much younger target audience than the first one did, so it’s difficult to fault the movie for taking cheap shots to entertain children with majestic wings and cheesy weddings. 

With impressive cinematography and great acting, the movie was enjoyable and had some adorable, painstakingly sweet moments, but it was not comparable to the excellence of its original film.