There seems to be a trend amongst these villain movies in that the villain is the parent of a main character. That was the case with Maleficent last week as Aurorua’s father was the villain and will be the case for the next two entries as well as this time, the villain is Prince Phillip’s mother. I’m not sure if that will be the case with the already announced Cruella sequel. Now interestingly, Phillip’s mother is not seen in the original animated movie, and the only time the animated Phillip’s mother was seen was in a storybook.
The fact that there is not a firm grasp on what Phillip’s mother looks or acts like allows for more leeway in a live-action portrayal of her.
Actor
Michelle Pfeiffer
Unlike the first entry, I am quite familiar with Michelle Pfeiffer as she is an actor that has been around for quite some time and has quite a few villainous roles under her belt including Catwoman in Tim Burton’s Batman Returns and Velma Von Tussle in the film adaption of the musical, Hairspray.Â
She is quite good at playing villains and that is on display here as well. Thankfully, she’s not as dark as Stefan which makes her acts all the more enjoyable as she is the type of villain where it is so much easier to root against her without her ever crossing such a horrid line.
Personality
She is cold, vindictive, and uncaring. She claims that she wants revenge against the Moors aka the magical creatures for killing her brother but she’ll do anything to get what she wants which includes a mass genocide of the Moors. Going back to the uncaring part, she puts her husband under a sleeping curse to keep him out of the way as he wanted true peace between the Moors and his kingdom. She of course places the blame on Maleficent and when Aurora and Phillip suggest using True Love’s kiss to wake the king, she is visibly disgusted at the idea.
And during the final act of the movie when there is an all-out war between the magical creatures and her kingdom, Phillip tries to reason with his mother but instead of listening to her son, she attempts to have him locked away in a dungeon.
First Appearance
The first appearance we get of Ingrith is of her holding a crossbow and you already have the sense that she believes that she will need this weapon when she meets Maleficent even as her husband tells her to put it away as they’ll no longer need weapons.
This moment is small but it shows how much she hates those that she deems untrustworthy. There is another moment that I wish to focus on and it is when Phillip’s family meets Maleficent for the first time.
She is nothing but loving towards Aurora and says she views her as her daughter deliberately driving a wedge between the princess and Maleficent as there is a whole theme of Aurora coming to accept Maleficent as her mother. She goes out of her way to have iron silverware placed upon the table knowing that it’d burn Maleficent. Oh, and as I mentioned when the curse is enacted, she blames Maleficent which causes Maleficent to fly off and find other dark fayes. This is also when we learn that the queen also has her own secret lair.
That she accesses by turn the head on this mannequin.
Grand Desire
Simply put, she wants to drive a wedge between the Moors and humans forever and kill the fairies. What she tells Aurora about how to rule is rather interesting here.
Do you know what makes a great leader? The ability to instill fear in your subjects and use that fear against your enemies.
This reminds me of Bellwether’s motive in Zootopia about how using fear to get what she wants.
Fear always works! And I’ll dart every predator in Zootopia to keep it that way! (chuckles evilly) Bye-bye, bunny.
At first, when I was watching this movie, Ingrith reminded me of Evelyn Deavor from Incredibles II in how they blamed what they were doing on losing a family member but the more I thought of it, that doesn’t quite work.
She is closer to someone like Bellwether when she reveals that fear is the best way to get what she wants.
Lackeys
Unlike Stefan. Ingrith does have two lackeys. One that seems to be working there unwillingly as he is a magical creature.
Lickspittle
Played by Warwick Davis, Lickspittle serves under the queen as an evil scientist even though he is a magical creature himself but he seems to be disgusted by that fact. He is working on ways to take out the fairies and other magical creatures. That is until Auroura helps him see the error of his ways and he reforms. Can’t say the same for Ingrith’s second in command.
Gerda
Gerda is the type of character that seems as though she would say that she was only following orders when attempting to take out the magical creatures. She is rather cold and stoic and will do whatever the queen asks of her. This includes perhaps the most heinous act performed by Ingrith.
Most Evil Deed
Ingrith has the magical creatures lured to a church where they believe Phillip and Aurora are to be married but she is leading them to their death as she has Gerda play the pipe organ filled with red iron dust in the hopes of killing them.
Yeesh, I was not expecting to think of gas chambers when watching a live-action fairy tale but here we are. The three fairy stand-ins are able to disable the organ and one of them dies but I’ll be honest that I don’t remember nor care to remember their names.
Demise
Her demise is a bit underwhelming but it does tie back into something that Maleficent suggested doing to Phillip early on in the movie and that is she turns Ingrith into a goat.
The woman that attempted genocide on another kingdom isn’t arrested or tried for her actions, nope she’s just turned into a goat and when her husband awakes from the curse, he has no desire of her being made human again. Yeah, for a movie that allows Maleficent to actually dabble more in being the Mistress of Evil considering the title, this was such an underwhelming thing for her to do for Ingrith but I get she views Aurora as her daughter and wanted her daughter to see that she was not completely evil.
Is Queen Ingrith A Good Villain?
She’s fine, there have been better and far more evil villains. There is a fun performance in here but she’s not a villain that I’ll remember after having re-watched the movie. There are fun moments to be had to be sure. Join me next week as we close this out as I look at the villain of Cruella…
The Baroness
