directed by Guy Ritchie
written by John August and Guy Ritchie
It becomes much easier to watch these live-action remakes of classic Disney animated films when one accepts they exist for no other purpose than to make money. It also becomes easier to set aside the agonizing question of why these things even need to exist (one I asked myself quite a bit while watching the nigh-unwatchable Dumbo a few months ago) when, as in the case of Aladdin, the movie itself is actually pretty decent.
Aladdin, loosely based on the fairy tale, is the story of a clever street thief (Mena Massoud) who scrapes by for a living in the fictional Pan-Arabic/Asian country of Agrabah, which is ruled over by an aging Sultan (Navid Negahban) who longs to see his only daughter Jasmine (Naomi Scott) married off before he dies. Little does the Sultan know that his grand vizier Jafar (Marwan Kenzari) plots to overthrow him using an enchanted lamp buried deep in the deserts of Agrabah. The Sultan is likewise unaware that Jasmine, who hopes to one day succeed her father as Sultan (even though there's never been a female Sultan in the history of the country), often sneaks out of the palace and into the city to see what life is like outside. During one such excursion she has a chance encounter with Aladdin and his monkey, Abu. Jasmine, with whom Aladdin is now smitten, passes herself off as her own handmaid, Dalia (Nasim Pedrad), but when suitors come calling to the palace, she has to hurry back, only be upset when Aladdin is unable to return a bracelet Abu stole from her. Aladdin sneaks into the palace to give the necklace back, but his stealth and skill gets the attention of Jafar, who promptly recruits him to find the lamp. Aladdin succeeds, but when Jafar double-crosses him, he is trapped deep in the underground cave with the Abu, the lamp, and, of all things a flying magic carpet with quite a personality. When Aladdin rubs the lamp at the carpet's urging, a blue genie (Will Smith) with even more personality emerges, with the promise that he can grant Aladdin three wishes. Wanting to woo Jasmine, Aladdin wishes to be transformed into a prince, and the Genie obliges. High jinks ensue.
There's actually very little to spoil here, especially considering how the original, animated version of this film has been doing the rounds on both home video and cable television for the better part of three decades, but for the select few coming in cold, suffice it to say that the movie pretty much pays off most of its setups throughout the film. For those who've seen the cartoon, there's very little here that's new, and what is new is a bit of a mixed bag, if I'm honest. It's basically a question of what works versus what doesn't.
I'd like to get this out of the way straightaway: the actors playing both Jafar and the Sultan are awful. I recognize that Ritchie went for a more weaselly approach to Jafar rather than the oily Euronasty he was in the original, and with a better actor it could have worked, but Kenzari just comes across as a tad too weaselly and not nearly as threatening as he should be, even in a scene in which he literally has Aladdin by the throat. Also, unlike Jonathan Freeman's voice performance in the 1992 original, Kenzari is basically devoid of any humor, and while one might be tempted to apportion some of the blame to the screenwriter, I can't help but feel that Kenzari wouldn't have been able to carry any of the jokes anyway. This marks the second time Disney fumbled the ball with the big bad guy; I rather disliked Luke Evans' take on Gaston in the 2017 Beauty and the Beast remake as well. One thing Beauty and the Beast had going for it, though, was a nicely understated performance by veteran actor Kevin Kline as Belle's father. Here in Aladdin, Navid Negahban takes his small but pivotal role as the Sultan and messes it up as he mumbles most of his lines and doesn't come across as the slightest bit regal. It's a bit of a puzzler, as I've seen Negahban's work elsewhere and I know he can act, but he's definitely off his game here.
Now for the good news: the leads, from Massoud as Aladdin to Scott as Jasmine to Smith as the Genie, all hit the mark. Massoud just about perfectly captures the youthful energy of his animated predecessor, especially in the action-packed roof-jumping sequences, as well as his insecurity, a key facet for someone who would rely on magic wishes to get ahead. He can also carry a tune quite decently, and was able to pull off the recreation of two of the 1992 film's most well known songs, "One Jump" and the legendary "A Whole New World." One can almost understandably overlook his contribution to that signature duet, though, because his co-star, Naomi Scott, really dishes out a powerful performance that is emblematic of just what she brings to this role. Jasmine, who already had a bit of spunk in the animated film, gets a serious upgrade here in terms of her character's strength, motivation and even the power of her singing voice as she seriously belts not only "A Whole New World," but an all new song, "Speechless," written by the original Aladdin composer Alan Menken and new recruits, lyricists Benj Paul and Justin Pasek. Scott is definitely the breakout star here. Incidentally, Nasim Pedrad is a welcome addition to the cast as Jasmine's handmaiden Dalia. Pedrad has excellent comic timing and it's also nice that Jasmine has an actual human for a friend and confidant, unlike her animated counterpart, who only had a tiger.
Of course, Will Smith has always been, and remains the main talking point here. He turns in a performance that completely justifies the highly-controversial decision to cast him, and as unthinkable as this may have seemed all those months ago, makes the role all his own. The important thing to emphasize is that he is not Robin Williams, nor does he, at any point, attempt to emulate the late comic genius' career-defining turn. He brings his own energy to the role, and while it may not be the manic, inimitable wackiness that Williams infused his Genie with, it serves this particular film well. Massoud and Scott do okay work, but this film would be lost without Smith.
Apart from empowering Jasmine and making some tweaks to make the film a little more culturally-attuned including the much ballyhooed casting of mostly ethnically appropriate actors and the tweaking of some song lyrics (e.g. "Sunday Salaam" is replaced with the more appropriate "Friday Salaam" in the "Prince Ali" number) and other little touches here and there, the film is pretty much the remake of the 1992 animated film that Disney were selling it to be. Thanks to the wizards at Industrial Light and Magic, snappy visual effects help the filmmakers realize the more fantastical aspects of the cartoon, like the Cave of Wonders, the flying carpet, Aladdin's furry friend Abu, and, of course, the Genie. Computer-generated imagery is also heavily used to transform sound stages in England into the fictional Agrabah, though most of the desert scenes were actually filmed in the Wadi Rum desert in Jordan. All in all, this is a movie with solid production value, and it helps that, unlike the downright embarrassing "singing" in the 2017 Beauty and the Beast, there doesn't appear to be any auto-tuning here.
Still, like Beauty and the Beast, the film neither aspires to nor achieves any real excellence on its own merit, content to faithfully recreate what came before it, and while it's clearly achieving its goal of making a ton of money, I still can't quite see the artistic merit of this business of just regurgitating old animated films, though I'll admit I'm willing to keep an open mind for The Lion King, which comes out in a couple of months.
7/10
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