Amazon.com video review:
Disney's 1959 animated effort was the studio's most ambitious to date, a
widescreen spectacle boasting a gorgeous waltz-filled score adapting
Tchaikovsky. In the 14th century, the malevolent Maleficent (not
dissimilar to the wicked Queen in Disney's Snow White and the Seven
Dwarfs)
taunts a king that his infant Aurora will fatally prick her finger on a
spinning wheel before sundown on her 16th birthday. This, of course, would
deny her a happily-ever-after with her true love. Things almost but not
quite
turn out that way, thanks to the assistance of some bubbly, bumbling
fairies
named Flora, Fauna, and Merryweather. It's not really all that much about
the
title character--how interesting can someone in the middle of a long nap
be,
anyway? Instead, those fairies carry the day, as well as, of course, good
Prince Phillip, whose battle with the malevolent Maleficent in the guise of
a
dragon has been co-opted by any number of animated films since. See it in
its
original glory here. And Malificent's castle, filled with warthogs and
demonic
imps in a macabre dance celebrating their evil ways, manages a certain
creepy
grandeur. --David Kronke
