Maleficent is a mishmash of seemingly random scenes and incidents, with barely a story to tell and little to say. For a film primarily aimed at children, there is shockingly little narrative coherency and little actual onscreen dialogue. In its place is arbitrary doom and gloom that won’t so much frighten children as depress them. It isn’t scary or even all that exciting. It’s not overtly violent as much as just mournful and patently un-fun.