Theatrical Review: Aladdin

Date: Saturday, June 1 2019
Location: Cinemark Theater in Stroud Mall
Time: 1pm
Party: 3 (my mom, sister and I)

Director: Guy Ritchie (from the RDJudsie Sherlock franchise)
Writers: John August and Guy Ritchie
Composer: Alan Menken

Cast:
The Genie- Will Smith
Aladdin- Mena Massoud
Jasmine- Naomi Scott
Jafar- Marwan Kenzari
Iago- Alan Turdyk
The Sultan- Navid Negahban
Dalia- Nasim Pedrad
Hakim- Numan Acar
Prince Anders- Billy Magnussen

Duration: 128 minutes (+7 trailers) 

Write-up:

Opening Comments

So this is kind of a trip... my first very trip to the movies was "Aladdin" way back in 1992. I even double checked to see if they came out around the same time... nope, Aladdin came out originally on Veteran's Day. I was 6 at the time. I don't remember much about it beside maybe the scene where Jafar throws him into the ocean. That was kinda traumatic and hard to watch. But little else comes to mind.

It was weird going to the theater for this one because they had assigned seating. That's never happened before. Why didn't they have this during the Avengers movie? We got in the back and that made for good seats for sure. I gotta say, though, the theater had a lot of people... it was a tough crowd. Nobody was laughing. Nobody was cheering after certain musical numbers. I wanted to, but I would have felt weird doing it if nobody else was going to join in. 

What I will say for it in general... the original will still stand as a classic. Nothing will touch it. I will commend this movie for sticking to the script and not varying too far away from it and adding too much. It never felt overlong for me at any point. 
But my main issue with it-- as much as they stuck to the script in a lot of places, it almost felt forced. Like they had to follow the original dialogue verbatim and it's like they were robotic about it. 
The acting choices for Aladdin and Jasmine were very on point. In fact, I really liked Mena Massoud as Aladdin. I could see why Jasmine fell in love with him with his street smarts and cool attitude. As Prince Ali, he was a bit of a push-over and very inept in attempting to woo her and then around the time where he and Genie have that fight, he became unlikable. That scene in the original was kinda tough because they had a big following out. Here, the fight didn't feel genuine to me. Again, doing it for the sake of the storyline, but I didn't find it believable. 

Anyway, just a preview before getting entrenched in....

Coming Attractions

None of these were for the Lion King, which I found odd because that's another upcoming live remake getting a lot of anticipation. 

The Secret Life of Pets 2- I finally saw the original. It was a cute concept, but after seeing Zootopia (I know they're not exactly the same idea, but close enough), it fell a little short. Plus I saw it with commercials, which slowed things down considerably. It's an interesting concept here where Max gets mentored by this imposing dog he meets on a farm in the middle of nowhere. I found out later he's voiced by Harrison Ford... bad-ass. 

The Art of Racing in the Rain- do we really need another talking dog movie? We already got A Dog's Journey Home with the shelter dog Bella. Then we had another one with Dennis Quaid where Bailey goes through several reincarnations. Now this... and the "human" protagonist is Milo Ventimiglia from "This is Us" who marries Amanda Seyfried and they have various difficulties and their dog is played by Kevin Costner... never mind if the dog dies, if something happens to Milo, it'd be a tough watch for me. There was one cute scene where Amanda's lying on the couch with this big round belly and the dog says "I would have hoped it looks just like me"

The Addams Family- I saw the movie poster for this going into the theater. It's an animated version, but it looks funny as hell. Oscar Isaac is somewhere in the cast, another attention grabber for me :P and one funny scene where Wednesday bemoans nothing exciting is happening and her brother falls out of a 2 story window and she says "thanks for trying"

Blinded by the Light- we're just in love with music fantasy movies lately, aren't we? Unlike Bohemian Rhapsody and Rocketman, this isn't a bio pic. Instead, it's closer to the Yesterday movie where music from a certain artist is changing someone's life. This case- Bruce Springsteen. This Indian 20-something lives in a traditional Indian household and finds his voice in Bruce's musice. To the point he gets a plane ticket to the US to see him in concert.
Now I'm not a huge fan of his... my folks grew up in New Jersey and he was played in the car a lot when I was a kid. But I don't get him that same way. In fact, I'd say I like his lesser known singles better-- Tunnel of Love and Hungry Heart are more of my speed.  As an artist, I do respect him so I think I'd really enjoy this movie. (His autobiography I've always wanted to read too)

Spider-Man: Far From Home-- after the last Avengers movie, I'm not sure how much of a mood I'll be in for these movies anymore... if this gets rave reviews, I might reconsider. But for now, I'm just not ready. 

Maleficent- Mistress of Evil-- I'm not sure what to make of this one. They already did the movie, rewrote her backstory where she's a fairy that gets her wings cut off by her lover, she's the one who kisses Sleeping Beauty awake and King Stephen is the bad guy. Are they completely rewriting that movie and trying something closer to the original Disney movie? According to IMDB, Aurora is becoming Queen... I like the idea of the back story they rewrote for this infamous Disney baddie, but it was just way too much of a re-imagining for my tastes. 

Toy Story 4- it's nice to finally get a proper trailer for this one. I'd seen a lot of teasers. Supposedly Bonnie's new toy Forky wants to run away because it wants to be in soup and be thrown away. So it's up to everyone to get it back. Then Woody meets up with Bo Peep again. Not only is she a strong feminist character, but she seems like an antagonist, trying to convince Woody there's more to a toy than just being a plaything for a child. I'm not sure how I feel about that. 

The Main Attraction 

I more or less am writing this as a fan of the original movie and talking how they adapted this from the original... therefore there will be a bunch of story spoilers, but I'm not giving everything away... at least I don't think so... 

One thing I will say to preface everything-- I don't know this movie line for line like I do "The Lion King," but I was following the script in my head for the first half of the movie... then by the second half, I just threw the book out the window and just went with the flow because it clearly wasn't going to be identical. 

First off-- Agrabah looks totally different. It's a port city instead of being in the middle of the desert. Jasmine is in the marketplace at the start, suggesting she sneaks out occasionally because she's caged in the palace all the time. She and Aladdin meet in the same manner, but it leads into his song "One Step Ahead" where he's dodging the guards.
The choreography for that scene is AMAZING. I loved how they had him going through the streets, knowing every corner like the back of his hand. But I was thinking-- why the hell is Jasmine part of all that? I felt very strange about it. 
Follow that up-- he asks who she is, but she gives a false name. The name is of her handmaiden, a completely new character invented for this movie. 
On the one hand, Dalia adds to the Genie's character arc, so that change I liked a lot. But the "false name" charade lasted way too long and it felt so forced. Plus, Dalia is played by an actress from the recent SNL cast. I found that distracting immediately because a lot of these SNL people try way too hard to be funny and it feels off. It was like having a correspondant from the Daily Show playing the Fire Lord from the live Avatar: The Last Airbender movie... one of MANY things that failed about that movie. 

Then there's the whole #GirlPower thing. It's great that they made Jasmine a strong character and she even gets her own song, "Speechless." That's kinda cool. But the need of adding another female character to this movie (which only had Jasmine in the original) and pushing the feminist agenda, it just comes off incredibly forced. As a female, I'm all for it, but don't overplay that hand. 
It's great that Jasmine cares for her people and wants to do right by them, but the whole idea of her wanting to be Sultan. I mean, her character was very critical about the princes sent her way for an arranged marriage, but she wanted to fall in love with her suitor instead of it being a forced marriage for the sake of the kingdom. (I think the original just had her bound by law to be married by her next birthday, which was impending...) 

The guy playing Jafar... yeah, he's a bit of a creep. So he nailed that, but I'm not sure if I got the whole "evil" vibe from him. What I liked that they added-- he had this weird pet peeve about being labeled "second best"-- keep an eye out for that. It's a hint for when he really goes ballistic. 
Iago, he sounds more like a parrot than Gilbert Gottefried ever did. But it was weird hearing someone else play him. I dont know if he wasn't asked because of the whole scandal that got him fired by AFLAC or they wanted to be more authentic. But I kinda missed having him in the movie. 

One change that was kinda nice. They gave a character with minimal screen time in the original movie a bigger and more impactful role. In the original, Hakim was Jafar's first sacrifice to the Cave of Wonders because he thought he'd be worthy to find the lamp. Here, he's one of the palace guards and what he winds up contributing to the movie, that was a great rewrite. I'll say that much. 

Back to the storyline-- Jasmine isn't told that Aladdin was beheaded for being accused of kidnapping her. He just agrees to meet her and he's caught by Jafar before he can. Fair enough. 
The Cave of Wonder is AMAZING... one of many great set pieces in this movie. 

Will Smith as The Genie is definitely a big talking point about this movie. He said he wanted to pay homage to Robin Williams with his performance, but also wanted to do his own twist on it. Some of the jokes were kinda lame, admittedly... need we talk about the jams (and I'm not talking about music here... bringing this up once was one thing, but multiple times in a span of 10 minutes... yikes)...
Anyway, he was a smooth customer and was a major highlight of the movie. It feels like forever since I'd seen Will Smith in anything. Since the 90's, he'd been doing a lot of serious roles in the types of movies I don't really get into. It's nice to see him in a comedic role again. 
The IMDb trivia mentioned his work in "Hitch" where he helps hapless men land hot women.... this was a very similiar dynamic.
It worked, but it also didn't. 

Aladdin was super confident in the animated version and even if he didn't really know what was what as far as being a prince, he certainly wasn't a bumbling idiot. In this version, I can understand why he'd had a difficult time adjusting to the Prince Ali character, but it's like he lost everything that made him appealing in the first place. 
They had a cool dance scene, but it was a little odd to watch with the Genie kinda pulling puppet strings to make him a sick dancer. 

The musical numbers from the movie were all hits and massive productions. Definitely well done and it helped sell the movie. The little moments in between, hit and miss. 

Quick note about the Sultan- he wasn't as dim-witted and lovable in this version, but he still had a bit of a weak mind that Jafar could control 

The scene where Jafar tries to kill Aladdin and the Genie has to save his life- I liked how they rewrote that so the high after "A Whole New World" isn't completely ruined... 
then how Jafar got the lamp back from Aladdin went back to his roots-- pay attention to the dialogue, that was a clever move.

Then when Jafar gets the lamp and starts making wishes... the storyboard by this point gets really choppy. 
It gives some big moments to other characters that didn't really get to show their strength. But how Jafar goes from Sultan to Sorcerer... it just felt weak... like he just realized nobody was going to take him seriously- some 15 minutes later- and then he makes that second wish. 

Then how the movie ends... it's a good overall ending and everyone has that happily ever after. That was great. 

Grade: B+