By Evan Lucken
The animated Aladdin from 1992 is one of, if not my favorite, Disney animated film. When Disney began announcing their plans for live action versions of their animated features, it was only a matter of time until Aladdin took its turn. When they revealed that Will Smith would be filling the role of the Genie there was a lot of apprehension. But honestly, I don’t think there is an actor out there that we would have all felt good about when they are filling in the shoes of Robin Williams(Well, not shoes exactly. I guess the Genie has a…tail?).
The main complaint about all of Disney’s live-action remakes has been their validity and worthiness. Can it thread the needle between shot for shot ripoff and irreverently different? Can these be more than a blatant cash grab, preying on the nostalgic and the now parental audience hoping to take their kids to the new versions of films they hold so dear from their own childhood? With Aladdin, it’s a little more complicated of a question to answer. There are some new things that kinda work here, but it’s chock full of bad decisions that make this film frustrating to watch. To be fair to this film, I will try to judge it on its own merits and not compare it to the original beyond its general story structure until the very end.
While I will want to get into the many problems of this film, I do feel I should first cover some of the good things that came out of it. The MVP is definitely Naomi Scott who plays Princess Jasmine. The screenwriters did some work giving Jasmine a more fleshed out role and agency. In the original, she was not just some princess to be won, but this remake worked to show her interest and investment in wanting what’s good for her people. She is more held back by the fact that she is a woman in a patriarchal society that traditionally expects women to keep quiet and out of the way. Naomi also had the best performances when it came to her musical numbers, including Jasmine’s new song, which I’ll get to more later. The film also makes an effort to be more representative of the cultures being portrayed. It’s nice to see appropriate casting and inclusion of middle eastern dancing and costuming, even if the latter was extreme with the colors. Another character that was given more dimension was the Genie. He always wanted his freedom, but with the new character Dalia as Jasmine’s handmaiden, he had a little romantic subplot of his own. Will Smith was never going to match the energy or manic pop culture-infused humor that Robin Williams had, but Smith brings a bit of his own flair in, and it usually works. “Friend Like Me” also carried much more fun than I expected.
Now for the real problems. Where to even begin? At best, this film is a beat for beat remake of the original with some 30 minutes added to the run time. There are some added scenes for character development. While some of them lend a little more insight and depth to the characters, most of it is poorly paced and feels much more like they are padding the run time. The musical numbers, old and new, feel a tad off. While Will Smith has a musical background, I don’t think anyone can argue that he has a great singing voice. Both his “Arabian Nights” and “Prince Ali” are serviceable at best. Aladdin’s “One Jump Ahead” is the introduction to his character, but it lacked a lot of musical energy and while we did get some acrobatics, most of the time, he’s running at a casual jog at best, making the chase scene more nonchalant than they probably intended. Finally “A Whole New World” was sung well, but the flying carpet sequence felt heavily uninspired. It’s bothersome to see a moment that captures such magic in the original presented in a lazy fashion. Guy Ritchie directed the film and so you expect some his style and flourish to pop up but there is a moment that literally made me shake my head because it was so jarring as to knock me completely out of the movie. And that’s where the third act comes in. Now I don’t want to spoil the film for those who plan to see it, but this ending act is so egregiously bad it’s infuriating. It’s amazing how they chose to take what was done so well in the original and then go for full Hollywood in such an unforgivably bad way.
Aladdin isn’t an entirely bad film. It has its moments. It’s just that it so often misses its mark in places it shouldn’t, and burns so much of its goodwill that by the end I was confused by all my mixed emotions. The good just doesn’t outweigh the bad. The most troubling thing is that they did show some potential and squandered it in the end. I just wish they put more time into the new stuff because this could have been so much more.
Grade: C