I just saw Maleficent, and I loved it. Granted, I expected to like it visually, but thought I'd be appalled with the story line. After all, it's based on Disney's Sleeping Beauty. While that movie is also a visual treat, it's the worst retelling of the story - judging by the sun, Aurora is asleep for a total of about 24 hours. The whole point of the story is that she's asleep for one hundred years!
Maleficent, on the other hand, is great specifically because it is not Sleeping Beauty - the title says it all. And I still love it, despite liking the original story, all the more for it.
From this point on, there will be spoilers, so if you haven't seen the movie - DON'T KEEP READING!
One of the best things about the movie is the nature of the curse. Aurora will prick her finger at 16 and fall into a deathlike slumber. And everyone, Maleficent included, is bound by it. The one thing you know is that Aurora will definitely live until she is 16 - she literally just could not be killed. If Maleficent simply wanted her dead, there were plenty of opportunities for it to happen, but she herself seemed unable to let it, no doubt because of her own curse.
Another thing I loved is that fairies burn at the touch of iron. It was a great connection to the Tuatha dé Danann (the Celtic gods of ancient Ireland) and the coming of the Gael (that is, the ancient Irish). The Tuatha dé can call fire down from the sky, defeat an entire host of shape-shifting sea monsters, and yet be driven underground by a bunch of invaders with iron swords. It was a nice touch that tied the movie in with ancient folklore.
There are plenty of other reasons to like the movie, especially with plot and character development. But the main reason why I could distance myself from the traditional story is that it really had nothing to do with it. Aurora's father (or rather, Briar Rose's) is not a bad guy, nor, for that matter, is the fairy that places the curse. She was just someone powerful who had been snubbed, and everyone, the king included, knew he was going to be punished for it. The consequences were so expected that the 13th fairy hid so she could undo whatever was coming. There's no punishment for the 'wicked' fairy - she was just doing what would be expected for someone in her position. No, if there's any bad guy, it's Briar Rose's future mother-in-law. See Charles Perrault for how well that turned out! So it didn't matter whether they redeemed Maleficent, or derided the king, it's just a good movie with a lot of fun fairy tale elements.
Though I will add this - I'm especially glad that they didn't call it Sleeping Beauty, since she was asleep even less time than in the first Disney movie. Even at an outside guess, the curse was broken in what couldn't have been more than an hour!