Aladdin
In the new live-action “Aladdin,” there’s a moment of self-awareness. One character holds up a sketch of three other characters, and it’s a line drawing in the style of the animated “Aladdin” from 1992, which you know because that’s what this movie is based on. It’s simple and direct and fun more interested in being delightful than looking “real.”
In this respect, at least, Guy Ritchie’s remake (Will Smith takes over for Robin Williams as The Genie) flips priorities. That isn’t to say it’s never fun; it sometimes is. But more often it feels lumbering, patchy, meandering and generally uninspired. It’s an elephant of a movie that knows how to dance just not lightly enough on its feet.
Ritchie rewrote this movie, written by John August (“Big Fish”) with music and songs by Alan Menken (and the late Howard Ashman) plus a couple of original tunes intended to qualify the film for Best Original Song Oscars, along with all other Disney films of our time both in terms of features and computer animation using CGI to turn expressive animated films into photoreal reboots which was said by Josh Raby that it’s like using a magic wand to make a toaster.
Unfortunately, “Aladdin” still tells the funny sentimental inspirational story about a poor ‘street rat’ who gets hold of magic lamp and carpet, calls up big blue genie, and schemes to win heart of princess while thwarting evil vizier’s plan to steal kingdom from heroine’s dad; but there are at least two potentially good or even somewhat original takes trying desperately hard to break free from this remake so they can have their moments.
One such take is about how the genie bonds with Aladdin (Mena Massoud) and tries getting free himself without breaking any genie/master rules; another concerns princess Jasmine (Naomi Scott), who’s not just some spirited feminist fond disguising herself as peasant and hanging out with commoners but may be ready for representative democracy if nudged right. Neither is allowed much time in sun though and that’s too bad because among most compelling (though not top-grossing) live action remakes ever produced by Disney recently have been those based on slightly less beloved titles like “The Jungle Book,” ”Pete’s Dragon,” or even “Maleficent,” which retells “Sleeping Beauty” from witch’s point of view thereby making them feel more like companion pieces than straight-up do overs.
This one sticks so faithfully close to beaten path that when it does depart therefrom it’s as though entire film had suddenly burst forth from chains holding everything back; like Will Smith is lone superstar among cast members so he naturally receives framing device (he’s setting sail as mariner regales two young children with tale), likewise when not busy repeating most good lines, jokes, situations from 1992 version which takes up perhaps seventy percent his screen time then putting own spin on things.
Opportunities are few therefore scarce and hence whenever Smith does deviate from sacred text mainly at emotional moments or during dialogue dependent comedy scenes where Ritchie can demonstrate flair for smart-alecky banter these instances fail to coalesce into idiosyncratic portrayal but rather hang there feeling apart from movie’s reason for being, namely luring people into cinemas by promising same thing they already knew loved slightly different.
Smith’s co-stars face the same problem. Massoud has a deadpan comic energy that glows whenever he doesn’t have to act out his animated counterpart’s iconic moments. Same goes for Naomi Scott as Princess Jasmine, who possesses a fierce dignity and can’t help it that her big original number “Speechless,” a song about silencing women written by two men (“La La Land” and “Dear Evan Hansen” composers Pasek & Paul) feels like a doorstop in the movie.
(The song’s motivation is more organic, though, and might’ve felt sincere and powerful instead of opportunistic if the movie had built to it, or better still, made her its main character.) Marwan Kenzari’s performance as the treacherous vizier Jafar departs most strikingly from the original film; Kenzari tries to create something closer to an antihero than a traditional bad guy, and although it’s ultimately more of a riff or vibe than a strong characterization (the writing lets him down, as it does every character), he’s genuinely scary in the second half. Little kids will be terrified of him.
Most of the major sequences here are the same from “Arabian Nights” through “Friend Like Me,” “A Whole New World” and beyond, with just a few fresh twists scattered throughout but especially during the last half-hour. This two hour and eight minute “Aladdin” is 37 minutes longer than the original version; it’s part of an ongoing trend across all sorts of theatrical films: Maybe the increasingly long average runtimes of special effects driven blockbusters are really just an elaborate response to gripes that tickets cost too much money because real wages haven’t gone up much since around 1973 i.e., this way you’re getting more for your dollar; people feel better about taking their kids out for long stretches and buying stuff at concession stands.
The film production is pedestrian in a disappointing way; the movie looks like some long tracking shots sewn together with CGI, some “dangerous” chase scenes with CGI added on, some musical numbers with ostriches and elephants and monkeys and camels, etc., which are also entirely CGI, and Smith’s genie whooshing around the frame, his wide and CGI-augmented torso and shoulders swiveling and bobbing and weaving while trailing an oddly cheap looking trail of sparkles. Early reports indicated that the film would address charges of xenophobia and racism leveled against the original, but there isn’t much evidence that the filmmakers troubled themselves about it all that much.
It seems entirely possible that nobody seeing this film will feel as though anything has been left out. The audience I saw it with at a sneak preview seemed to enjoy it well enough but then again, you can never tell under such circumstances whether a movie is really winning people over or if they’re just happy because their tickets were free. Most of the bits that seem to work best here were imported from the original “Aladdin,” save for a few jokey buddy-comedy exchanges between Aladdin (Mena Massoud) and the Genie (Will Smith).
As with many of Disney’s most recent remakes of animated films in its own back catalog, this one seems to operate under the same strange misconception of what constitutes cinema in general not just genre cinema like science-fiction adventures or superhero narratives or fairy tales i.e., that if it’s animated (a.k.a. a “cartoon”), it’s somehow not a “real movie,” and thus not deserving of either the automatic respect granted to any expensive heavily promoted motion picture nor as validating to those who’ve paid money to see said motion picture as any other kind might be.
All of which is weirdly wrongheaded thinking about movies in general but especially strange given how much these sorts of movies depend on CGI flourishes, even when they’re trying to make the mountains and buildings and tigers and parakeets made out of ones and zeroes look as “real” as possible. “Aladdin” is not any more realistic, ultimately speaking, than “Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace,” which came out 20 years ago and has comparably sketchy computer imagery.
Apparently this is where audiences or at least some substantial chunk of them want the movie industry to go. Toasters as far as the eye can see.
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