I wanted to see Maleficent ever since I saw the first teaser trailer for basically one reason: Angelina Jolie as Maleficent. The trailers looked fantastic and on that criteria… the film delivered. She looked magnificent!
Plot
The plot was a bit contrived since it had to work in the confines of the Sleeping Beauty story. I really liked some of the new bits of lore they added in, but not all of it worked well when taken as a whole.
Visuals
The movie did look stunning, however I didn’t enjoy many of the flying effects at all. The flying at times brought you out of the illusion. Don’t know if it was the wire work, or just parts of the CGI additions… but something was off.
That being said, the look of all of the characters is near perfect. Big props to
the team that worked on all of the crow’s transformations. They all looked
crow-ish and great 
.
Verdict
If you’ve wanted to see it since the trailers… go. If not, wait to rent or Netflix!