Whose imagination is under strain?

In the shorter of his two reviews of Maleficent for The New Yorker (subscription required for both links), Anthony Lane condenses his complaint-filled long one into a single question:

As for the screenplay, by Linda Woolverton, it treads carefully, and all too kindly, in the footsteps of “Wicked,” assigning a tender heart to what we have hitherto viewed, and relied upon, as bad. Can our imaginations really not take the strain?

I wonder, whose imagination cannot take the strain: those who can imagine a reason for evil actions and the possibility of redemption through love*, or those for whom the story can never change, but must always be black-and-white, "relied upon" and unaltered from their first hearing?



* ps: I can't tell you how much I like the fact that movies are beginning to take "an act of true love," or more specifically "true love's kiss", and uncouple it from romance - especially the "love at first sight" variety of romance.