Sleeping Beauty

Plot synopsis:
After many childless years, King Stefan and Queen Leah happily welcome the birth of their daughter, the Princess Aurora. They proclaim a holiday for their subjects to pay homage to the princess, and at the gathering for her christening she is betrothed to Prince Phillip, the young son of Stefan's friend King Hubert, so that their kingdoms will always be united.
Among the guests are three good fairies called Flora, Fauna, and Merryweather, who have come to bless the child with gifts, beauty and song. Before Merryweather is able to give her blessing, the evil fairy Maleficent appears, only to be told she was unwanted. Maleficent turns to leave, but when Queen Leah asks if she's offended, the evil fairy curses the princess, proclaiming that Aurora will grow in grace and beauty, but before the sun sets on her sixteenth birthday, she will prick her finger on the spindle of a spinning wheel and die. King Stefan and Queen Leah are horrified and beg the three good fairies to break the curse. Unfortunately, they are not strong enough to break it, but Merryweather uses her blessing to weaken the curse so that instead of dying, Aurora will fall into a death-like sleep from which she can only be awakened by true love's kiss. King Stefan, still fearful for his daughter's life, orders all spinning wheels in the kingdom to be burned. The fairies do not believe that will be enough to keep Aurora safe, and so they spirit baby Aurora away to a woodcutter's cottage in the forest until the day of her sixteenth birthday.
Years later, Aurora, renamed Briar Rose, has grown into a beautiful teenage girl. On the day of her sixteenth birthday, the three fairies ask Rose to gather berries in the forest so they can prepare a surprise party for her. Rose is friends with the animals of the forest and sings them a song, Once Upon a Dream. While singing in the forest, Rose attracts the attention of Prince Phillip, now a handsome young man. He races to find the owner of the beautiful voice and is instantly struck by Rose's grace and beauty. Rose at first is frightened at the sudden appearance of the stranger, but Philip soon puts her at ease. They instantly fall in love, unaware of being betrothed years ago. Rose asks Phillip to come to her cottage that evening.
While she is out, Flora and Merryweather argue about the color of Aurora's ballgown. They fight, attracting the attention of Maleficent's raven and revealing the location of Aurora. Back at home, Briar Rose is thrilled to tell her guardians she met a man and fell in love. The fairies tell Aurora the truth about her heritage, that she is a princess and already betrothed, and tell her she must never see the man she met again. Heartbroken, she leaves the room. Meanwhile, Phillip tells his father of a peasant girl he met and wishes to marry in spite of his prearranged marriage to Princess Aurora. King Hubert fails to convince him otherwise, leaving Hubert in equal disappointment.
The fairies take Aurora back to the castle and leave her alone in a room to wait for her birthday celebrations where she will finally get to see her parents. Maleficent then appears and magically lures Aurora away from the fairies and tricks the princess into touching an enchanted spinning wheel. Aurora pricks her finger, completing the curse. The good fairies place Aurora on a bed in the highest tower and place a powerful spell on all the people in the kingdom, causing them to fall in a deep sleep until the spell on their princess is broken. While doing so, they overhear a conversation between the two kings. From King Hubert's conversation with King Stefan, the fairies realize that Prince Phillip is the man with whom Aurora has fallen in love. They rush to find him, but he is kidnapped by Maleficent who is waiting for him at the cottage in the woods. She shows Phillip the peasant girl he fell in love with is the now-sleeping princess. She tells him she plans to keep him locked away until he's an old man on the verge of death, then release him to meet his love, who will not have aged a single day.
The fairies find and release the prince, arming him with the magical Sword of Truth and the Shield of Virtue. Maleficent tries to stop Phillip by surrounding Aurora's castle with thorns but fails. She then transforms into a gigantic dragon to battle the prince herself. Ultimately, Phillip throws the sword, blessed by the fairies' magic, directly into Maleficent's heart, causing her to fall to her death.
Phillip awakens Aurora with a kiss, breaking the spell and thereby wakes everyone in the palace. The royal couple descends to the ballroom, where Aurora is happily reunited with her parents, while King Hubert is confused of how the two young royals met. Flora and Merryweather resume their argument over the color of Aurora's ball gown, magically changing it from blue to pink while the happy couple waltzes. The last color to appear is pink. Princess Aurora and Prince Phillip live happily ever after.

Tags: fantasy

Review:
I managed to last about 15 minutes until I wanted to gouge out my eyes and drill a huge hole in my head to make it all stop.It is such a long time since I have seen a movie so awful, how it managed to to get a 4 I will never know, I would have given it less than 1 but there is no option.
Today in this financially challenged time I find it incredulous that this type of junk direct to DVD rubbish keeps being made, I would have hoped that the financiers had closed off the lines of credit, the sooner the better in my own opinion..
Because of this, it's obvious the film will have a low budget and very modest pretensions—and most likely will be a film you'll see coming direct to DVD.
And, I might add, it's filmed entirely in Bulgaria.The cast for Sleeping Beauty is very, very unusual.
In addition to acting in the film, Casper Van Dien directed the film.
This is because this odd version of the classic story has a lot of intense gore as well as a reference to rape—and I really am not sure why these were included in the film.The first portion of the film is much like the Perrault story as well as the Disney tale.
However, the good fairies are able to change the curse—instead making it so the princess will sleep for as long as it takes until a prince of good heart will come and kiss her.
Weirdly, they also put the entire kingdom to sleep when she falls asleep —even though this seems like an incredibly bad idea as it leaves the kingdom to the nasty sorceress.So far this is pretty much the classic story.
Having the prince battle his way in, kill the sorceress and kiss the sleeping girl clearly had to be padded outa lot.
The overall effect isn't badbut it is muddled and not particularly noteworthy unless you thought the original story should be spiced up with zombies, spinal columns being yanked out, be-headings and the like.
It's not goodbut not completely terrible either if you absolutely must see a classic fairy tale infused with zombies and the like.
Sleeping Beauty is far from great, far from good even, but for The Asylum it's okay.
Maya Van Dien is very endearing as one of the more interesting characters while Finn Jones is good carrying the movie, and the ending is fun with some goofy suspense.
Sleeping Beauty starts off very well too with a great classic fairy-tale atmosphere.
However, much of the rest of the acting is not very good, Casper Van Dien and Catherine Oxenberg is rather wooden as underwritten characters; Grace Van Dien is beautiful but never rises above okay due to not having much of note to work with; Olivia D'Abo's performance is very inconsistent and not in a good way with hammy moments and bland ones, and worst of all Edward Lewis French plays the Prince as a truly annoying idiot.
The characters are fairy-tale clichés and that would not have been a bad thing- characters can be clichéd and still be good enough- if they didn't have such cardboard personalities or acted so inconsistently.
The story feels very dragged out in places as well as structurally rather muddled and while it starts off well it later goes over-the-top with the violence and gore that it feels like a completely different movie and makes one question who the movie is aimed at.
The music does sound pedestrian, the narration while delivered in a very distinguished manner by Michael York wasn't necessary and at times over-explanatory and the special effects do often look cheap with stilted movement.
All in all, Sleeping Beauty is not good but it is not that terrible either, nowhere near among The Asylum's worst.
Most probably the worst movie I have ever seen and believe me after going back to watch the old Batman & Robin Drama with the 'BOOMS' & 'CLASH' that is saying something!
because the experience of Casper van Dien as actor could be basis of a better story.
because it is only a film for the family and friends of director and the great question remains why the movie is on the big screen.
Writer/Director Casper Van Dien (Johnny Rico from "Starstip Troopers") shows some real audacity in how he handles the story: the evil witch has an army of zombies, gives shelter to a murderous sea monster AND rips a guy's head straight off (a guy who bleeds awful effects), that really ought to count for something.
If you get to make your debut as a director with a movie about Sleeping Beauty and the first thing that comes to mind is "hey, let's put in zombies", you are entitled to some of my respect.
"Sleeping Beauty" will have tremendous trouble finding an audience though: the movie's way too creepy and gory for the kiddies, but the title won't attract many fans of terrible B-movies either.
The prince is kind of a jerk this time and the princess is in the movie even less than in the original.So the queen and king of Magicfantasyland have a baby daughter and hold a ceremony in the courtyard.
The three good fairies are busy blessing her with vague, useless gifts like "truth" instead of chainsaw arms when an evil fairy (now Tambria rather than Maleficent) bursts in and curses the child to be pricked by a spindle before her 16th birthday.
The brat prince discovers her kingdom's plight and runs off to face the evil Tamera and her gang of monster zombies-- goons and whipping boy in tow.The Bad:The writing is bland and amateurish.
Half the time, I wasn't sure whether to blame the actors or the script for a particularly terrible line.
I believe Sleeping Beauty's mother may take the cake in the bad acting department.
Barrow (Finn Jones) didn't annoy me as the lead and actually did a decent job of playing the annoyed whipping boy the whole time.
At the beginning I really thought this movie would be something great, kind of like Lord of the Rings or some other well made adventure film.
With the means to go to Bulgaria to shoot a film like this one with good costumes and to be honest pretty OK selection of actors (I'll get back to this in a moment), you would presume the result to be, if not true to the story, then at least providing you with an hour or two of adventurous excitement.
No twist, no surprise, just funny looking zombies and what I felt was poorly inspired acting throughout the movie.
It seemed to me as a lazy attempt to shoot the movie live, kind of like 'playing as we go'.
Lots of effort was made to make a movie like this keeping in view, the scenery, the dress, the buildings, the carriages, the culture, the castle, the kingdom and the royalty life style, apart from the CGI's that were shown were all up to the mark, as the movie do not have a famous actor or actress it doesn't means that the movie is not good, on the other hand the movie was really good and the minutest details were covered with detailed analysis and relevance to the actual story.
I liked the movie and after seen all I was thinking that my one and half hours was not wasted.
I rate this movie 7 out 10 due to its detailed planning and execution and keeping the audience committed to the story till the end..
Apart from the terrible acting from an okay cast and some dodgy directing, this isn't too bad a story.
As a film though, it's only average.Though the cast has B-Movie king Casper Van Dien (who directed this flick), Catherine Oxenberg, and Michael York listed, their worth in this film is minimal.
Even though, Van Dein and Oxenberg, as Sleeping Beauties regal parents, are asleep for the majority of the movie they actually appear to be sleepwalking in their "awake" scenes.Even Olivia D'Abo who has a meatier role as the evil witch, Queen Tambria, ofttimes appears to be a somnambulist.
The best actors in this little play are the Kings whipping boy, Barrow (Finn Jones) and the Prince Jayson (Edward Lewis French) along with his heavy Gruner (Gil Kolirin), and his soldiers.What this film really appears to be is an exercise in how many Van Dien's you can get on the screen in one film...
the Van Diens make a movie.The one thing that did surprise me was the location.
I would love to live in that mansion come castle.That said, there were a lot of gaping holes in the story that Dien should have ironed out when filming.
This is bad writing and directing.There are some nice beasties in the film, though you can see when the budget started to run low.
However, near the climax of the film, the same monster is looking pretty funny and quite unrealistic as it prowls the dungeons.On the whole, this film could have been a hell of a lot better had the "Quality" cast put the effort into their portrayals of their characters...
I'm guessing Casper, having been excited with the experience of working at Mortal Kombat franchise for the first time, decided to make a semi-'Mortal Kombatish' movie, of which he thought it would kinda be appealing both to kids (the adolescents anyway) and the adults.
Plus, the teenage girl-like fairies, sleeping princesses and daffy impostor-princes on one side and the gory scenes of head-ripping on the other side...
well, don't actually go hand in hand.I also fail to get it why Casper every so often has to cast his family into the movies he chooses to play in.
Maybe the crew, who sensed in the preproduction the movie would suck, thought a high class young actor would come up as a saving grace, just as they though Michael York's narration would yield the story as thrilling or at least bearable.Generally, an averagely endearing pastime of a movie, but hardly something to be remembered, either among the critics or the audience..
I fell like it was done very well and a different twist on the fairy tale...
Warning do not let your kids watch this unless you want them to see walking dead zombies.The movie is what it is, which is a modern adult themed interpretation of a Disney classic.
I could tell from the cover that it was going to be a B-movie, but figured it would be an OK movie.Well, the wife watched it one day when I was at work, and when I came home she was smiling and grinning, saying I really had to see this movie.It has zombies and just the right amount of gore, which make it worth watching, Compared with other movies, I think this movie would have made Maleficent, look like a B-movie if it had its special effects budget.I give it an 8 out of 10, and say with the right mindset going in, you wont be disappointed Its like a Chronicles of Narnia mixed with a little of the Night of the Living Dead.
When people gave this a 1/10 review on IMDB stating that the title had no production value, I was expecting something different, and I am a big fan of low budget horror, and student films, but this was well rehearsed, scripted, executed, and not a low budget, and, not a student movie set.
This is what I would call a Vanity Movie, in that it seems Casper van Dien promised his daughters to make a movie with them and this is the result.The two critics so far seem puzzled for what kind of audience the movie was made and I can see their problem.
For an actual Parody Movie it takes itself way to seriously (I think that would have been a fun way to go with this), and I hope I'm not talking out of my butt here because I'm not exactly genre savvy, since I usually have the threshold of an immature three year old for scary stuff, but as a Scary Movie it fails spectacularly too, as it's not scary like ...
Of their girls I like Maya better than Grace, but then she also had probably the more interesting role with (little plot helper) Newt rather than Sleeping Beauty.Olivia d'Abo is underacting while overacting.
Some of which are a brutal sell-sword type (Gruner), two brothers (lets call them Rapist and Thief) and a farmer lad (Barrow) that acts as whipping boy for the prince and overall punching bag for all of them.
Unlike the zombies the CGI monsters are actually pretty cool for a B-movie.
I was keenly interested to see what I expected to be a modern retelling of an old fairy tale, enhanced with fine acting and superb special effects.
The story was interesting, and the characters and settings were well presented and costuming was pretty good, and the quality of the filming was acceptable.
The acting was poor all around, and the obvious attempt to embed some credibility by having the narration done by Michael York proved too little.
I thought it was something similar to the old Hollywoody movie, but was I wrong big time.
I could not imagine where in the world they found this kind of prince, specially when you make a fantasy movie.
My recommendation is get as far away as possible from this C grade movie (B grade is too good for this one....).
Sometimes a movie is so bad that I feel compelled to review it in a desperate attempt to save others the money I've wasted.
The title role being blandly and subserviently played by daughter Grace who doesn't demonstrate any character which could place her as a female role model and develop her career (her entire existence can be encapsulated as too stupid to not touch spindle knowing what it represents, needs prince to wake her, instantly becomes his, and has his baby), while daddy Casper writes/directs and plays her dad and step mum Catherine Oxenberg plays mum.
The movie may have benefited from open auditions to get talented actors rather than just family members, but then it is possible that the writing was so bad that no-one with any actual ability wanted any of the roles.The budget is clearly low as the special effects are quite ordinary by 2014 standards, although if the story and acting were up to par, the effects probably wouldn't have mattered much.
It probably doesn't help that it is one of three movies in the same year re-telling the same fairy tale.
While I haven't seen the other 2014 Sleeping Beauty, I cannot envisage it being as bad as this one, and Maleficent is a clear choice here instead..
SLEEPING BEAUTY is a B-movie version of the story, shot in Bulgaria by actor Casper Van Dien, who seems to have cast most of his family in supporting roles.
It bears little relation to the actual fairy tale and is more like a typical movie by The Asylum.
A bullish prince and his companions go on a mission to rescue a beautiful princess from an evil queen, and along the way they encounter lots of terrible CGI dragons and random zombie-like foes.
So, Casper Van Dien (of Starship Troopers fame) decided to feature his daughters in a fantasy story.
It seemed like everyone, even Casper Van Dien himself wasn't serious about this movie.
The only actor who actually made an effort (and way better than they rest) was the horrible Prince Jason.
Not only is one actor/actress make such woeful effort, everyone was equally bad, some more than other, including Casper Van Dien himself.
This movie made the villain look pathetically powerless and not evil enough.Weak and corny script.
Not even Casper Van Dien and his wife was at all convincing.Let's look at the scene at the river/lake (I couldn't tell for sure, they said 'lake', but the lake looked too small to be a lake, more like pond).
A good narrator does not tell a good story, at least in a movie.The only thing I can praise about this movie is the beautiful setting.
I can see that much work has been put into making it, but the acting skills of the actors/actresses, the weak and corny script and weak directing make it all worthless.What are you doing with this piece of crap, Casper Van Dien?.
But then i saw some familiar faces including actors from Game of Thrones, Starship troopers etc.The movie starts out in a mighty kingdom where a new princess is born to the King and Queen.
Then another evil queen comes around and curses the new princess because she wasn't invited.
And then the story follows the fairytale with everyone falling asleep etc.Then we go 100 years in the future and see some prince and his five men whipping Loras Tyrell because they seem to be the only people in his kingdom and i guess they have nothing else to do.
Long story short they travel to seek this forgotten kingdom with the princess which is in the middle of a field so makes no sense they didn't know where it is.Now the good part actually starts.
But they really made some good CGI monsters, good plot twist and a very good ending!I give this 9/10 because of the actors and the very good writing from the second act!.
The acting is pretty poor, the costumes looked like they came from a thrift shop and the dialogue is awful!
Having Casper Van Dien and his family direct and star in the film was some more Asylum genius as no one has mastered the faux-Elizabeathan accent like them.
Sleeping Beauty was named "Dawn." Again, how clever is that, especially when Casper Van Dien is made up to look like Tony Orlando.Then there is the almost Monty-Pythonesque language:Prince: "What is that?"