Ingrith the scheming Queen of Ulstead (Michelle Pfeiffer) is the one who engineers a faceoff with a rather reticent Maleficent (Angelina Jolie) while the latter's adopted daughter, Princess Aurora (Elle Fanning) goes into blissful incandescence following the dashing Prince of Ulstead, Philip's(Harris Dickinson) marriage proposal. But the 'sleeping' beauty here is not the Princess, you can be sure!

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Disney's in-house writer Linda Woolverton (Maleficent, Beauty and the Beast, The Lion King, Mulan, Alice in Wonderland) ensures that her team (Noah Harpster and Micah Fitzerman-Blue) connect all the dots but it's the visual wizardry that makes this a lively affair. Three little pixies from the first film, played by Imelda Staunton, Juno Temple and Lesley Manville, a winged warrior Conall (Chiwetel Ejiofor) and several other old and new characters add-on enough spice to keep this experience fairly magical.

The action though, fails to find firm ground. It all looks too unreal. It's also a little stupid to suddenly show Maleficent and her winged warrior tribe succumbing to attacks when legend has them having recuperative powers that no human can hope for. The scale of the climax is grandiose but the effect is not. Norwegian director Joachim Ronning gets our juices flowing up to a point but there's not much to gush about other than the look, costuming and luminosity of the lead actors. Angelina Jolie, looking svelte and enigmatic can't be expected to act given those sharp computer generated cheekbones, Michelle Pfeiffer is competent as the evil Queen while Elle and Harris make charm their target. Despite the bloated effects and generic storytelling, this film does manage to entertain!

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