My Viewing This Stevening... 'Aladdin' Remake

As with all the Disney remakes, even before the first trailer was released, Disney knew that it would make a hell of a lot of money without making much effort at all, but this idea is certainly no truer than with Aladdin. This was confirmed when the film passed the $1 billion mark at the global box office, and now Disney is already predictably working on a live-action adaptation of the sequel;The Return of Jafar. The sequel rumours are interesting, as those familiar with Disney history will know that the surprise success of the direct-to-video sequel to the animated Aladdin spawned a mass array of direct-to-video sequels of nearly all of Disney's properties. This is very much within the Disney mantra of; "People like them, let's make some more of them," but without any consideration of delivery works of actual quality or originality, and that is the problem with the Aladdin remake.

For those who live in a Cave of Wonders and don't know the story, here's a description I stole from Google;

Aladdin (Mena Massoud) is a lovable street urchin who meets Princess Jasmine (Naomi Scott), the beautiful daughter of the sultan of Agrabah (Navid Negahban). While visiting her exotic palace, Aladdin stumbles upon a magic oil lamp that unleashes a powerful, wisecracking, larger-than-life genie (Will Smith). As Aladdin and the genie start to become friends, they must soon embark on a dangerous mission to stop the evil sorcerer Jafar (Marwan Kenzari) from overthrowing young Jasmine's kingdom.

The story is simple enough to follow, and while there are certain controversies surrounding the pre-Disney origins of the Aladdin story, it manages to make the film a bit less racially problematic than its animated counterpart. Jasmine has a fair bit more to do, and a lot more ambition, and the culture is represented in a way that appears to be a lot more accepting of women in general. That being said, the improvements on the overall story do not, in any way, mean that this film isn't a flaming pile of shit.

Anyone who is a fan of the original animated version will no doubt hold a special place in their heart for Robin Williams' depiction of Genie. In fact, while Robin Williams insisted that the original film not be marketed on the sole basis of him providing a voice to one of the characters, one of the reasons it works so well is the animation plays to Williams' core strength, which was his ability to ad-lib, and essentially animate around his unique delivery of the lines written for him. THIS is the main reason why the remake simply doesn't work.

To a broad degree, Aladdin is almost a shot-for-shot remake of the original, with a few little additions and updates thrown in. But because it's virtually shot for shot, there are scenes which simply don't translate well from animation to live-action. The initial chase sequence of Aladdin through the streets of Agrabah which morphs into a musical number comes across as out of place in the remake, particularly when throwing Jasmine into the mix. The animated intro was all about Aladdin, his situation, and how he survives, but the remake seemed overly preoccupied with introducing Jasmine as early in the film as possible.

We lose two things very early on which are truly key to making the original animated story work so well; Aladdin is a good-hearted thief merely doing what he does to ensure the survival of himself and Abu, Jasmine is a compassionate princess suffocated by her position within a Patriarchal Royalty, and why she's so determined to escape that. Now sure, we have some of these elements introduced at later points in the film, but fundamentally, they act as positive precursors to the characters so you understand them early on, rather than just getting to know them by, say, 45 minutes into the film.

But what about Genie? Well, I mentioned about the animated Genie character essentially being animated around Robin Williams' unique energy and ability to ad-lib. Will Smith just doesn't have this. A great actor, yes. A funny guy, yes, but Robin Williams he is not. As a result, the translation of many familiar lines and songs by Genie from the original, just do not work when performed by Will Smith. I understand that the singing for Genie was a voice over, but neither Will Smith—or the guy they actually had doing the singing—can sing. Coupling the terrible singing with portions where Robin Williams' ad-libbing would very clearly come into play, what we have is a very poor imitation of a much-loved classic character.

That aside, what else was a piece of shit? Well, of particular annoyance to me was the change in the animals. Gilbert Gottfried as Iago is just such a memorably voiced character, loud, abrasive, erratic, and consistently angry that his boss, Jafar, simply hasn't managed to destroy the Sultan and become Sultan himself yet. I loved this character as a kid, and I loved Abu too. Sure, the characters having more 'human' traits in a live-action film may have seemed off for some, but fundamentally, when you're dealing with a film involving a magic, wish-granting genie, and a magic carpet that's basically alive, where's the harm in retaining some other parts of the magic?

Frankly, if you're going to remake a movie like this, Disney may have been better served by simply returning to the drawing board, as they seem to be doing with Mulan, or as they did with the Dumbo remake. At least then, there would have been no real expectations that it would retain the magic of the original, by presenting something completely unique that fans could determine the quality of the film based on its own merits, rather than merely playing a game of compare and contrast.

Is it worth a watch? Well, if you're looking to kill some time, then why not? But there's a lot of better films out there that are more worthy of your time than this. My hope is that they learn lessons from this, and maybe not have Guy Ritchie (a weird choice of Director) at the helm, and rather than simply trying to re-hash an original story, attempt something new with a sequel. Even if it centres around bringing back Jafar, I'm sure there's many ways that story could be brought to the fore without simply re-doing the entirety of the original direct-to-video movie.

Score: 4/10