Film Review - Aladdin (2019)

Aladdin is a live action version of the 1992 animated classic and this time Guy Ritchie takes the directors chair and co-writes the script with John August, the story takes place in Agrabah where a young street rat named Aladdin (Mena Massoud) meets the beautiful Princess Jasmine (Naomi Scott) but only a prince can marry a princess and with the help of the Genie of the Lamp (Will Smith) he hopes to win her hands though the evil Vizir Jafar (Marwan Kenzari) also desires the Lamp for his own purposes.

I have loved the original Aladdin since I was a boy back in 1994 which is when it came out on Video here in Australia, it was arguably the one film above all that did the most to shape my already developing love of movies and mould it into something tangible and meaningful, it is a movie I have also come back to multiple times over the years as I grew older and into adulthood and when I bought my 4K TV last year I put the Blu-Ray of Aladdin on to test the colours on it and it soared with flying colours.

I’ve also come to learn about the making of that original film itself from the original treatment done in 1988 by Howard Ashman and Alan Menken which had a full suite of songs and the bones of what would become the final film sadly completed after Howard’s passing in 1991 and I went into this new Aladdin fearing the genuine worst as the trailers had been abysmal showing shoddy effects, a director in Mr Ritchie looking out of his depth in directing visual effects and barely showing us the new cast inheriting these wonderful characters, how could this not end up in total failure?

Well surprisingly this does not end up in total failure but it is also not a very good film either, the main reason for this I feel surprisingly is Will Smith as the new Genie, he doesn’t try to redo what the late great Robin Williams did with the role (which is one of the greatest supporting actor performances of any movie ever) but channels some of his own Fresh Prince of Bel Air charm to the role that for the most part works and when he was just Will in an outfit and not Blue I thought it was pretty fun and I enjoyed that part of the film.

However this movie overall is a total mess and firstly I have to talk about the script and it is a real mess, it tries to pad out certain sections of the film while completely ignoring other sections the latter of which tended to be those crucial character building block moments that were so good in the original film beit Jafar’s quest for the Cave of Wonders, Aladdin and Jasmine bonding over their life circumstances, Al and Genie’s friendship and Jafar and Iago’s twisted partnership those elements just feel brushed aside and as a result you find it hard to connect with any of the characters in this new version.

Speaking of them both Ms Scott and Mr Massoud are good young actors and they try their absolute best with what they’ve been handed but they just cannot hold a candle (or a lamp even) to what Scott Weinger and Linda Larkin did in the original film, their versions of the characters had depth to them, a sense of confidence, a shared connection despite their very different lives and you could see why one would fall for the other Aladdin for Jasmine’s free spirit, her beauty and her take no nonsense personality and Jasmine for Aladdin’s charm, humour and that sense that he will love her no matter what.

But the one thing that did worry me the most about this new version was how it would handle Jafar as Jonathan Freeman was so good in that role the stage show basically went and brought him back to reprise the role for that show but here Mr Kenzari is pathetic, woeful and weak as all Smeg rolled into one, he does NOTHING to make this character work and it just feels like the script decided to turn him from an intimidating Vizir/Sorcerer into a buffoon who feels like a joke and after how good Thanos was in Avengers: Endgame this feels even more disappointing.

And I know I have said this so many times people have become so bored of hearing it their wanting to rip their own ears off so they don’t have to hear it anymore but having a strong villain in these kinds of genre films matters, they are so vital to this type of narrative that to me it can make or break your film again go back to Thanos in Infinity War and Endgame his writing and Josh Brolin’s performance were so good and so glued to that 2 parter that I don’t think they would’ve been anywhere near as successful without him and Disney used to pride itself on their villains:

- The original Jafar
- Scar in the Lion King
- Ursula
- The Wicked Queen
- Maleficent
- The Wicked Stepmother
- Gaston

I could go on of course but I’ll stop there and its just so sad that this crucial cog of storytelling seems to just be treated as an afterthought and that has to change.

And so that was the new Aladdin and look its not a bad movie not at all but its not very good either and I just wanted to watch the original movie again after I got home from seeing this new version after all as Thanos says “Where did that bring you? Back to Me” 1.5 out of 5.