“Aladdin” review: A lazy embarrassment for Disney, Will Smith and Guy Ritchie
This image released by Disney shows Mena Massoud as Aladdin, left, and Will Smith as Genie in Disney's live-action adaptation of the 1992 animated classic "Aladdin." (Daniel Smith/Disney via AP)
2/5 Stars
The musical adaptation of the 1992 animated film is one of the year’s worst.
Rating: 1 star, Rated PG, 128 minutes
Poor production values, rubbish jokes, poor editing and a general feeling of low standards pervaded the film.
With such a wide audience for fantasy, sci-fi and animated films — both in age and in the increasingly lucrative overseas markets — what might have once been considered a “kids’ movie” now has the potential to be one of the biggest and best things you’ve seen all year, or at least the highest grossing.
“Aladdin” is not this type of movie. It is a kids’ movie rehash from a pre-21st century template ultimately lazy, boring , wooden in concept and execution, and lacking any sense that the people in charge thought this was going to matter. It aims low and consistently misses its targets, wasting a breathtaking amount of money, talent and goodwill along the way.
Mena Massoud limply plays the title character, with a signature perplexed expression that seems to be his version of resting bitch face. Aladdin is a nimble street urchin who steals to survive, and whose only friend is his monkey, Abu. When Aladdin runs up against the Sultan of Agrabah’s menacing guards, he’s recognised by the conniving Grand Vizier, Jafar (Marwan Kenzari), as the fabled “diamond in the rough” for who Jafar has been searching.
The kingdom of Agrabah, is in bad shape. The Sultan is under Jafar’s evil spell, and daughter/heir Jasmine is forbidden from roaming the realm or making meaningful decisions. The Sultan simply wants to marry her off (and Ritchie’s script, co-written with John August, does nothing to expand upon this or explore Jasmine’s mind). Frustrated, Jasmine escapes and runs into Aladdin on the street. Mistaken identity and sparks ensue, but soon Aladdin finds himself forced to steal a magic lamp on Jafar’s behalf, lured by the promise of winning Jasmine’s affection.
The plot and themes are well-known to anyone who’s seen the 1992 Disney animated film on which this live-action musical is based, or the Broadway musical it later birthed. But the Middle Eastern folk tale from which all of this is adapted? That feels as distant as director Guy Ritchie’s good judgment or taste. (He at least had enough of the latter to cast non-white people in most roles.) Although, there is still colourism, as they cast only light skin actors and it feels a bit euro-centric.
Ritchie, whose work includes leaden, grunting titles like “Snatch” and the recent, mediocre “Sherlock Holmes” films with Robert Downey Jr. with his latest flop “King Arthur” always seemed like an odd choice to take the reins. But turning newcomers such as Kenzari or Naomi Scott (who plays Princess Jasmine) into blank, charisma-free mannequins proves that anyone but him would have been better.
That’s especially clear when our blue-skinned genie finally arrives. Performed by Will Smith in a mostly-CGI, occasionally live-action role, Ritchie’s co-authored script and numb direction saps any sense of momentum from one of Hollywood’s most charismatic performers. In other words: It takes a special kind of fool to ruin Will Smith in a role where he’s given express orders to be funny and light.
The uniformly clumsy, cheap-looking production doesn’t help. Director of photography Alan Stewart seems incapable of setting up an intelligible shot that isn’t perfectly still; when it is, it looks like a TV camera shooting a holiday parade from a crane. The special effects are fuzzy and unconvincing, although even some of the glaring green-screen shots are better than the backgrounds provided by the drab, textureless sets. Camera speeds, like accents, come and go for no reason, and the sporadic musical numbers are as rushed and underdeveloped as the button-pushing plot turns.
But the Genie — the centrepiece visual effect, and a character brilliantly inhabited by Robin Williams in the 1992 version — is the biggest disappointment of all. Like the tonal schizophrenia that plagues the acting and editing, the Genie can’t seem to settle on a look. Lumpy and rubbery one minute, unnervingly dead-eyed the next. There’s no excuse for such a disappointing centrepiece in a film with seemingly endless possibilities for visualisation. But it’s not surprising when the big set pieces go nowhere and the momentary sight gags never really connect.
The choreography occasionally stirs, as when Genie imbues Aladdin with supernatural dancing abilities. And there are moments when the pageantry clicks into place for a few merciful seconds, a swirling spectacle of song (with new number “Speechless” standing out, and not necessarily in a good way), with dancing animals and bright, silky costumes.
The rest of the film finds our wide-eyed, over-acting Aladdin stumbling through a clunky script and worse production. Having seen the animated film, Broadway musical and live-action adaptation of this tale — all from Disney — over the past 30 years, I can safely say the 1992 cartoon version is the only one we ever needed.
Ritchie’s “Aladdin” is so wrong it’s a wonder Disney let it slip through its normally stringent quality control; so bad that it garbles what’s otherwise the sturdiest, most relatable of all fairy tales; so bad that it’s insulting, and yet not even bad enough to enjoy.