3.0 Stars
Directly on the heels of the live-action film Dumbo, Disney has released its 12th re-imagination of one of their animated classics. Aladdin (Mena Massoud) is the story of a street rat kid who steals to survive in Agrabah with his sidekick pet monkey Abu. The Princess Jasmine (Naomi Scott) had snuck out of the palace and gave two loaves of bread to a couple hungry children. The merchant wasn't pleased with her, but Aladdin helped her escape. They started to fall for each other but she could only marry a prince. All she wanted was to step into her father's role as Sultan (Navid Negahban), but that was also forbidden. And, she had competition. The royal vizier, Jafar (Marwan Kenzari) also had his dark evil soul set on becoming the Sultan. To do so, he'd need the magic of the Genie of the Lamp (Will Smith). But the lamp was in a cave in the desert where only the "diamond in the rough" could successfully enter. Aladdin was forced to retrieve the lamp for Jafar, but kept it for himself becoming the Genie's master. He is granted three wishes and uses his first wish to become Prince so he could woo the Princess. Trouble ensues as Jasmine and Jafar discover Prince Ali's secret identity.
The animated film released in 1992 featured the late great Robin Williams as the many voices of the Genie. Will Smith has taken on the impossible task of filling the pointed Genie shoes. While Williams had a very distinct voice that was immediately recognizable, he also possessed the genius talent of creating characters in whom you did not see Williams, but the character. My fears about Smith taking on the role were two-fold: I felt his performance would be constantly compared to Williams (which is inevitable, but not fair to anyone trying to fill the role); and I felt that the Genie would be another comedic Will Smith performance. I do enjoy most of Smith's movies, but he is one of those actors you could pull up out of most of his movies, drop into another one and it's pretty much the same character. It felt like watching Hitch, Bad Boys, Fresh Prince, or Men in Black but on the set of Aladdin. He did a respectable job with some original and funny moments. But trying to modernize the Genie and adding his own flair sometimes just didn't work at all, like beat-boxing.
Another concern I had was in Guy Ritchie sitting in the Director's chair. Aladdin is definitely different from the types of film Ritchie is known to direct. He's called the shots for Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels; Snatch, RocknRolla, and the Sherlock Holmes films; so it was a little difficult to see how that would translate to the fantastical, live-action animated, family Disney film. My biggest concern was his lack of experience with CGI and the amount of animation that would be necessary to successfully accomplish bringing Aladdin to life. Honestly, I felt he did pretty well. I think John Favreau really set the bar with animal animation in The Jungle Book and everyone has really learned from his accomplishments. Ritchie's Abu and Raja (the Tiger) were nearly flawless. The first carpet ride was really a great effort. The second one got a little sloppy. Ritchie should have taken a page out of Tim Burton's playbook who really played around the limitations of animation with the scenes where someone was riding Dumbo. Overall, I thought Ritchie really put out a decent film.
I didn't mind the mild storyline tweaks that has also become a standard characteristic of the live-action versions of their animated classics. What really did irk me, though, was that Smith's and Massoud's vocal performances as Genie and Aladdin were not on par with the original animated version. And, while I'm critiquing the cast, the Parrot Iago was a disappointment. Gilbert Gottfried lent his unique voice to the wise-cracking side-kick to Jafar. He was a snarky, loud and hilarious character. This one was barely audible and pretty tame. And with a not-so-intimidating Jafar as the villian, we could have used a few more laughs. Jafar was not menacing in the least. His presence in the film was as lackluster as Snoke from the new Star Wars movies.
The saving grace of Aladdin was the performance of Naomi Scott as Princess Jasmine. She was a strong female lead, beautiful, elegant, funny, smart and sang her heart out with a pitch perfect delivery that was mesmerizing. It is because I am such a huge fan of Disney and because of Scott's performance that I am not knocking my rating down further from my original prediction of 3.5 Stars. I'm going to give Aladdin 3.0 Stars. It was worth seeing in the theatres, but I also could have waited for it to come out on DVD. I might watch it again when it does become available, but it probably won't find a home in my personal collection on the shelf next to the 1992 animated version. So, what movie will be on my mind next? We shall see.
