Aladdin (2019)

Aladdin is the newest live action remake of an animated classic, directed and co-written by Guy Ritchie. This retells the tale of a street urchin, Aladdin (Mena Massoud), who desires to capture the love of Agrabah’s princess, Jasmine (Naomi Scott); from the request of the vizier, Jafar (Marwan Kenzari), he finds a magic lamp that awakens a Genie (Will Smith) that will be able to grant three wishes of Aladdin’s choosing.

While in the past, I’ve had ups and downs about the recent Disney remakes coming out, Aladdin was one I was the most mixed about being done. The original film by Ron Clements and John Musker remains to be one of Disney’s most celebrated films; the brilliant music by Alan Menken and Howard Ashman (whom this was the last film he wrote music for), some of the clever and playful dialogue between characters, and the animation being absolutely lively, especially with the action scenes. Being the 31st animated film by the studio, as well as the first to follow up their BEST PICTURE NOMINEE Beauty and the Beast, a lot was riding on this film living up to that hype in some way. And it did, by becoming the first film Disney made to spawn a franchise afterwards, leading to two more films (albeit direct-to-video) and a tv series that expands on the Arabian Nights lore.

The idea of a remake wasn’t too far fetched, since there was more to expand on, but that didn’t exactly mean it was going to be easy. And going into this, I was hoping that if they played their cards right, this could actually be more beneficial to Disney than they thought...sadly, they had different intentions.

Starting off with the positives, the set design and production look great; Agrabah was not only given a more grounded design, but not too much to where it doesn’t stand out. I also liked how some scenes are actually shot out in the desert, and not just mostly blue screen; and the look of the Cave of Wonders is pretty. Some of the action scenes and cinematography are exciting as well, especially with Aladdin’s maneuvering; you can definitely see where Disney knew Guy Ritchie would do best, when hiring him, because he gets the thief skills down. Unfortunately, that’s mostly I can say that worked.

For the most part, the acting felt very wooden, especially from our main leads. Mena Massoud and Naomi Scott look absolutely bored to be there. Even when they’re reciting the dialogue from the original script, or bringing the new lines to life with the same tone and inflection as Scott Weigner and Linda Larkin, it didn’t seem like their hearts were in it. Naomi Scott was great in the 2017 Power Rangers, and to see this film underutilize her was really frustrating to watch, especially with what they did to Jasmine’s character; on one hand, they made her want to be sultan, but then made her scared of pole vaulting, when the animated version had no problem with that (these remakes keep sacrificing one trait, to emphasize another already there).

The worst of all was Jafar; Marwan Kenzari, I’m sure he did his best, was completely miscast here. The details on him being a thief like Aladdin and bargaining at his level rather than disguise, I thought that was clever, but he played this way too straight forward and too low energy. They even made him dumber by getting bamboozled by nearly EVERYONE in the film; heck, after gaining magic abilities, he doesn’t even use them until minutes after he gets tricked by Jasmine (She jumps off the balcony, and yet he doesn’t stop her?!). His parrot, Iago, has been subdued from the talkative type Gilbert Gottfried played him as, which is either going to relieve people, or annoy them; Iago is actually my favorite villain sidekick, so it was upsetting to see his role downplayed, especially when Alan Tudyk was cast in the role. Come on, at least Luke Evans and Josh Gad had fun with Beauty and the Beast.

A complaint I often hear about the original from critics against it, is that it doesn’t pick up until the Genie comes in, and that was actually my complaint with this movie. One of the biggest concerns had with this movie was with how the Genie would be handled. This was a character created especially for its original actor, the late-great Robin Williams, a comedy legend and master improviser (in fact, that improvisation is actually what cost Disney their chance for a Best Adapted Screenplay nomination), and since then, no one has been able to match his performance; not Dan Castellaneta, not Jim Meskimen (the actor currently voicing him), heck not even Williams when he came back for King of Thieves could recreate that lightning in a bottle. To Will Smith’s credit, he doesn’t try to mimic Williams’s performance the way Castellaneta did; he plays him less like the funny-buddy, and more like his character from Hitch, which does play off nicely with the rest of the film. They also give him a romance with Nasim Pedard as Jasmine’s handmaid, and there are one or two moments are a nice homage to Williams, especially in the beginning where he’s telling the story.

The worst part about this movie is, aside from “Friend Like Me” which was given a surprisingly decent hip-hop flare, all the singing in this movie is garbage; in fact, all I could hear every time someone tried to sing, was the sound of Howard Ashman rolling in his grave. Right from when Will Smith begins “Arabian Nights”, I knew right then something (or someone) was off. I know Will Smith has had a long music career, but rap is a completely different style than Disney Showtunes; not everyone who has a career in music is fit for every genre. This also has a similar problem I had with Beauty and the Beast, where they added a new song or two that completely mess with the pace of the movie. Here, it’s a little worse, because the new song they give Jasmine is completely unnecessary and should have been cut from the film; it doesn’t add anything to her character, doesn’t change anything from the story, and it just makes her come off as bratty (and that song was written by Pasek and Paul).

As much as I do get why Disney went with Guy Ritchie, his quick and grimey style of filmmaking for works like Sherlock Holmes or Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels just didn’t seem to mesh well with this kind of dialogue. The original film’s script was written by Terry Russio and Ted Elliot, who later adapted The Pirates of the Caribbean trilogy directed by Gore Verbinski; in my mind, Verbinski would have been a better fit, since Pirates of the Caribbean had the same kind of fun tale of thieves vibe both films are known for. Ritchie’s style just comes off as too plain, and even when it does try to pop, it feels generic. Not to give away the ending (although, nearly everyone knows how it ends, if you’ve seen the movie or played Kingdom Hearts), but this is my biggest nitpick: of all the remakes Disney could give a sequel to, why give it to the two worst ones Alice in Wonderland and Maleficent, yet drop the ball with this? It’s not like they don’t have the money to pay Will Smith to come back as Genie.

Aladdin isn’t the worst remake Disney’s put out, but it was a bigger disappointment than expected. I wanted this to prove me wrong and be amazing, and it does pick up a bit when Will Smith enters as Genie; but with the lackluster singing, wooden performances, and a story being dragged the whole way through, I just don’t see how I could recommend this to anyone unless you have literally nothing better to do. This is another one of those films, where the more I think about it, the worse it gets.

Rating: D+