Kurt Loder Reviews A Million Ways To Die in the West and Maleficent
Seth MacFarlane finally appears in the flesh in A Million Ways to Die in the West. Unfortunately, the flesh is weak. As he has demonstrated in the long-running Family Guy and his phenomenally successful 2012 film Ted, MacFarlane is an overflowingly talented comic writer and voice actor. Kurt Loder writes that here, though, stepping into the spotlight and directing himself in a parody western he cowrote, MacFarlane's anachronistic joke-cracking persona seems too small-screen to anchor a full-scale movie. Loder writes that Maleficent—a live-action take on the studio's 1959 animated classic Sleeping Beauty—is an honorable enterprise, an often-gorgeous kids' movie featuring two strong female characters and dominated by Angelina Jolie in a performance of wonderfully silky restraint.
Hide Comments (0)
Editor's Note: As of February 29, 2024, commenting privileges on reason.com posts are limited to Reason Plus subscribers. Past commenters are grandfathered in for a temporary period. Subscribe here to preserve your ability to comment. Your Reason Plus subscription also gives you an ad-free version of reason.com, along with full access to the digital edition and archives of Reason magazine. We request that comments be civil and on-topic. We do not moderate or assume any responsibility for comments, which are owned by the readers who post them. Comments do not represent the views of reason.com or Reason Foundation. We reserve the right to delete any comment and ban commenters for any reason at any time. Comments may only be edited within 5 minutes of posting. Report abuses.
Please
to post commentsMute this user?
Ban this user?
Un-ban this user?
Nuke this user?
Un-nuke this user?
Flag this comment?
Un-flag this comment?