SLEEPING BEAUTY

REVIEWED BY SHANNON H.

Our rating: 5 out of 5

Rated:  

Disney Studios has fascinated two to three generations of audiences with films based on old fairy tales. Snow White, Cinderella, and the somewhat recent Little Mermaid are seen by children of all ages, thus annoying their parents by watching them over and over and over again. In order to preserve timeless classics such as these, the Disney company is putting them on DVD to allow them to be enjoyed by several more generations of children.

A long time ago in a Medieval castle, King Stephan and his wife had just given birth to a darling little girl they named Princess Aurora and already, they had decided on a suitor for her when she comes of age. Little Prince Philip is seen gazing at his future wife in her cradle when he and his father, King Hubert (from a neighboring kingdom), pay a visit to Stephan. The meeting is friendly and the two hope to become future in-laws. Their joy is turned to horror when an evil fairy named Maleficient pays a visit to King Stephan's castle. She puts poor little Aurora under a wicked spell, that, when she turns 16, she would prick her finger on a poisoned needle of a spinning wheel and die.

King Stephan then sends his daughter to live in the woods with three good fairies who aren't exactly "the sharpest knives in the drawer." Flora (the pink fairy), Fauna (the green fairy), and Merryweather (the blue fairy) all try to raise the now 15 and a half year old "Briar Rose" (Aurora's alias). While planning a small, surprise celebration for the girl's 16th birthday, the fairies send Aurora (or Briar Rose or whoever you want to call her) to go pick berries so they can surprise her when she gets back. While doing her errand, Aurora meets a handsome prince on horseback taking a ride through the woods. There, the two meet, hang out, and dance to the tune of Peter Tchaikovsky's theme music. After she gets back to her "home" in the woods with the fairies, she finds out about the real reason why she's been hidden away from reality and other people.

Despite being hidden from the outside world, Maleficient's spell starts to work as Aurora, in a hypnotic state of mind, ends up pricking her finger on a spinning needle that was poisoned.  Immediately, she dies and King Stephan and the rest of his kingdom is in mourning for his loss.  However, the three fairies smell dirty business and enlist the help of Prince Philip to do battle with the evil Maleficient to save their kingdom and, possibly, save Princess Aurora from eternal death. There is hardly anything in this film that would be considered objectionable. The violence is extremely tame but might scare little kids. The utterance of "hell" is surprising, but it is not used in a vulgar manner. Maleficient addresses Prince Philip by saying "Now you shall deal with me, o prince - and all the powers of Hell!" It might be somewhat concerning if parents don't want their children to start saying "all the powers of Hell" at a young age. Nonetheless, everything else is clean fun.

Sleeping Beauty is one of my personal favorite Disney films because of how they use Tchaikovsky's music piece of the same name and incorporate it into the film itself.  The story was based somewhat on an old folktale that Tchaikovsky based one of his music pieces. I am a die-hard fan of classical music and have been listening to it since I was eleven. To watch a film choreographed by such beautiful music is quite moving. One of my favorite moments of this movie was the constant bickering between Flora, the pink fairy and Merryweather, the blue fairy. Those two could not decide on what color to make Aurora's dress and ended up messing it up after turning it from blue to pink one too many times. In my opinion, the dress should be blue, but then again, blue is my favorite color.

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