Aladdin (2019)

And so, the latest chapter of the live action remakes has come around with ‘Aladdin’, one of Disney’s more popular animated classics. With that comes high expectations, and with the aftermath of the live action remake of ‘Beauty and the Beast’ comes low expectations.

‘Aladdin’ finds our favourite street rat (played this time by Mena Massoud) trying to win the heart of Princess Jasmine (Naomi Scott). He finds an old lamp which houses a powerful wish granting Genie (Will Smith). Deciding to use the Genie to help gain the affections of Jasmine, Aladdin must also be wary of the Grand Vizier Jafar (Marwan Kenzari) who seeks to use the Genie for his own nefarious means.

Let’s start off with the Genie, shall we? As mentioned, the Fresh Prince Will Smith himself was cast as the wise-cracking Genie. Smith faced some…criticism for his portrayal of the infamous Genie, originally voiced by Robin Williams; from the original picture showing him looking human, to the CGI blue Will Smith, to comparisons to Williams. So, how did Smith’s actual portrayal come off?

He was alright.

Yeah Smith doesn’t really put a foot wrong with the role. The only issue against him, is that’s he’s not Robin Williams, and that would have been the case regardless of who it was. Williams made the Genie role his own, putting in such a great performance and energy into it. Even Smith admits that Williams left big shoes to fill. So, yeah, Smith gave a good performance, not great, but good. Though I do feel there’s a bit of hypocrisy when Genie says he’s only going to disguise Aladdin as a prince with the rest coming from Aladdin himself, and then proceeds to use his magic to make him dance.

In fact, the role I was more worried about, was Jafar. Jafar is one of my favourite villains in the Disney Classics franchise, occasionally flip flopping for that number one spot with Scar, and I got quite concerned when they changed Jafar from the older, more experienced vizier, to a younger version. In some ways this comes off quite well, as they did it to show the commonality between our hero and villain; saying they’re from similar backgrounds, both had tricks up their sleeves (sleight of hand in particular), both have ambitions to better their lifestyles. Upon saying that, it does seem odd with how far Jafar has bettered his lifestyle, to go from street rat to Grand Vizier in the same amount of time that Aladdin has done bugger all.

Marwan Kenzari meanwhile does bring a sense of foreboding to the role; he does a great job in bringing out Jafar’s sinister side. The problem? He’s so boring to listen to. The film focused so much on making Jafar scheming, war hungry, and evil, that they forgot to give him the charm and humour the original had. Oh yeah! I said war hungry! Throughout the film Jafar is trying to persuade the Sultan (Navid Negahban) to invade a neighbouring country, though it’s never really explained why Jafar wants to go to war. We know very little of this other country nor are we told why Jafar particularly hates them. Well, there’s sort of a reason, but I’ll go over that in the spoiler section. But the main point is that, despite the new film going into Jafar's background more, you kinda know less about him.

Naomi Scott meanwhile does bring her A game with her portrayal of Jasmine, with her performance being the only reason why 2019 Jasmine comes off as a strong character. Mena Massoud’s Aladdin, on the other hand, well, I didn’t like him. To be fair to him, Massoud doesn’t do much wrong, though I do feel some singing and acting could have been better. Largely though, I think it’s just the character and how it’s written. The original Aladdin was memorable and had that certain charm, the 2019 Aladdin…I actually struggle to think of a quote that wasn’t basically done by the original, besides saying “Really?” when Genie magically moves him across the floor…which, come to think about it, for some reason no-one else noticed this happened.

There are two major differences concerning characters though, and that involves Iago (voiced by Alan Tudyk) and Dalia (played by Nasim Pedrad). What’s that? You don’t remember Dalia from the original? Well that’s because she’s a brand-new character, serving as Jasmine’s confidante. Whilst I can only assume her character was created simply because Jasmine is the only female character in the original, she serves nothing to the plot. Seriously, take Dalia out of the film and virtually nothing changes, apart from Aladdin having an easier time to get Jasmine alone.

And that’s why Dalia wasn’t in the original film, as it was to further enhance the fact that Jasmine feels all alone, with only her father and Jafar for company, hence fuelling her need to get out of the palace. Now, they did change Jasmine’s character a little so that she’s thinking more of the people than herself, but that doesn’t change the fact that Dalia adds very little to the film. The only other role she plays is that she’s the Genie’s love interest. Because that was apparently needed. Yes, it’s nice to see, but mostly this romance just feels forced, only in place to provide Genie a happy ending. Because apparently the hope of being freed from a millennium of slavery wasn’t enough.

In fact, the major character change that I didn’t mind was Iago. Going for the realistic approach, we’ve lost the Gilbert Godfrey chatterbox (which is sad), but the new Iago character is done so well that it doesn’t really matter. He’s funny, can show off that maniacal personality, he’s actually better written than most, if not all, of the human characters, and when a CGI parrot is the most convincing character in your film, there’s a problem.

In fact, Iago was probably the most convincing CGI effect in the film. For the most part. Nothing looked real in this film, nothing looked like it was actually in the room. No wonder we didn’t see the blue Genie for the majority of this. Heck, some of the special effects look more cartoon than the cartoon!

But something that is becoming increasingly obvious is that, by sacrificing animation for realism, the newer films are also sacrificing energy and momentum. And nowhere is it more obvious than the songs. Whereas the 1992 version of ‘Prince Ali’ was full of energy, the 2019 version looks slow and lethargic in comparison. ‘A Whole New World’ had the magic carpet doing loop the loops in the original, interactions with the clouds, Jasmine doing the Titanic pose as they flew. In the new one, I think the most that happened was Jasmine making herself a bit taller as she raised herself on her knees. Even ‘Arabian Nights’ was disrupted when partway through the song we stopped at the Cave of Wonders to see Jafar’s servant get eaten.

There is one new song called ‘Speechless’, which is actually pretty damn good. Part one of it was anyway, as it helped explain Jasmine’s character and aims to teach everyone about standing up for yourself and making your voice count. The reprise of ‘Speechless’ however, feels out of place. Don’t get me wrong, it’s all about Jasmine finding the strength to oppose Jafar, but it’s basically two minutes for something which I feel could have been a lot stronger had Jasmine just whispered a line to herself and then giving off a dramatic speech. Instead, she sings the reprise, with the choreography just consisting mostly of walking, and then gives the speech, so it feels like a waste of time as she’s now effectively repeating herself.

I do have an issue with another reprise though, with that being the ‘Prince Ali Reprise’, with my issue being THEY FUCKING CUT IT. The song which Jafar gleefully sang in the original as a means to spite Aladdin and gloat of his superiority, is instead replaced with dull dialogue.

Now, when I first saw this and left the cinema, I didn’t like it. I thought, like the other live action remakes that it was a hollow shell of the original. Reflecting on this through this review…I can see a lot more to it now. Sure, I still prefer the original to the new version and there are things which I feel the original did better (looking at you Jafar), there’s some good aspects to it. Will Smith and Naomi Scott give strong performances and, whilst it can deviate, the story has been updated fairly well.

With that being said, with the forgettable characters being outshone by a CGI parrot, a paint by numbers plot, including a climax which took a huge step backwards from the original film, and some pretty poor CGI, the new ‘Aladdin’ may not be as bad as I thought it would be, but I won’t be rushing out to watch it again any time soon.

And you know what? ‘The Lion King’ is just around the corner, and what could possibly go wrong with that?




Spoiler Section

Jafar’s first wish makes no sense. Admittedly it had been something which, over the years, bothered me with the original, but yeah, Jafar’s initial wish makes no sense. Jafar’s first wish was to be Sultan, but no-one acts like he’s Sultan. Aladdin, Jasmine, and the (actual) Sultan oppose his rule, while in the newer version the guards also turn on him. So, what’s the point in wishing to be Sultan, if no-one is going to follow you? I suppose it ties in with the Genie’s rule that he can’t affect free will and Jafar’s arrogance.

But this then brings me to a point mentioned earlier, regarding Jafar wanting to go to war with a neighboring country. Obviously, this was to show Jafar’s lust for power, to show he wanted to create an empire rather than just rule Agrabah. But if that was the case, why didn’t he just wish to be ruler of the Earth? The original Jafar was content with just Agrabah (at least for the time being), but Jafar seemingly wants to conquer the whole planet. Why didn’t he just wish to be conqueror of the planet?

The thing is, this is an easy fix; don’t have Jafar saying he wants to go to war with a neighboring country. Have Jafar wish to be Sultan, and then show his hunger for more power, show that it didn’t satisfy him and that his original wish was flawed. Otherwise he might as well have just wished to be Supreme Overlord of Earth and save himself the time and effort.