Aladdin (2019, PG)

Live-action Disney adaptations (or “live-action,” in the case of the upcoming Lion King) are weird.  They’re definitely cynical cash grabs, they never live up to the awesomeness of the original, and from a basic standpoint, they’re just not stellar movies.  And yet, they still get me.  My experience watching the new Aladdin was much like my experience watching the live-action Beauty and the Beast:  I had a number of grumbly/scowly moments in the theater, but I somehow still came away with an overall-warm feeling about it.

Aladdin, a poor “street rat” in Agrabrah, dreams of a better life for himself and his monkey friend Abu.  Little does he know, he’s actually the fabled “diamond in the rough,” the only person who can enter the mystical Cave of Wonders and retrieve the magical Genie’s lamp.  Aladdin releases the Genie by accident and finds himself the proud owner of three wishes.  Having fallen in love with the princess Jasmine, Aladdin hopes his newfound magical friend can make him into the kind of man Jasmine could love, but he has to be careful:  Jafar, the sultan’s evil vizier, has plans for the lamp.

I think I’ll start with the complaints, the biggest of which, for me, is the slapdash treatment of Middle East culture.  The original movie was no prize either (the opening number includes the actual line, “It’s barbaric, but hey, it’s home!”), but it at least has the excuse of being made in 1992 – I’d hope that, 27 years later, we could do a little better.  I can’t help but compare it to Black Panther, another Disney-produced film set in a fictional country that means a lot to a particular marginalized group.  Not that I was ever expecting Aladdin’s Agrahbrah to feel as beautiful and richly-detailed as Wakanda – Guy Ritchie clearly wasn’t embarking on the labor of love that Ryan Coogler was in bringing it to life – but the kingdom feels altogether flat and non-specified.  You don’t see an overarching vision for what Agrahbah looks like or what it’s about, and the hasty allusion to it being a diverse port city feels like little more than an excuse to populate it with all manner of ambiguously-brown extras, much like the Dothraki (and I promise this is the only time I will compare Aladdin to Game of Thrones.)

Other than that, it’s the usual complaints:  it’s a pale version of the original classic film.  There are funny pacing issues in the songs, the singing voices – while ranging from decent-ish to pretty good – aren’t as strong (but who could compete with Lea Salonga?), iconic lines don’t come off as well.  Also, there are points where it looks downright cheap.  That’s so bizarre, because Disney owns everything we love at this point and is basically waist-deep in money at all times, but there are shots where the CGI looks shoddy, where the costumes look like, well, costumes.  I noticed the same thing with Beauty and the Beast, and I can’t figure out how that happens.  And on a personal note, although I like the attempts to make Jasmine a little more “empowered,” giving her a desire to become the next sultan herself rather than just the wife to one, the movie weirdly cuts out a lot of her biggest moments of agency from the original movie.  We don’t see her being a quick study when she meets Aladdin in the market, she needs a pep talk before she can get across the rooftop, and she doesn’t even say, “I am not a prize to be won”!  What gives?

But for that, like I said, I did still find myself enjoying it and have been thinking of it mostly fondly since I saw it earlier this month.  The majority of the songs stick the landing fairly well, with my highlights being the exuberant “Prince Ali,” the action-packed “One Jump Ahead,” and the lush “A Whole New World.”  Even though, like I said, some of the pacing is off, they never feel sluggish, and the actors all acquit themselves well on the singing, occasionally getting through on charisma and emotion when the vocal chops are a bit lacking.  There’s one new song, a solo for Jasmine called “Speechless,” and while I do enjoy it, I wish it sounded like it fit into the rest of the score a bit more – it’s a tag-team effort by Alan Menken along with Pasek and Paul (of Dear Evan Hansen, The Greatest Showman, and so forth,) and it sounds a little conspicuous among the other songs.

As with Beauty and the Beast, there are also places where the story is fleshed out a little and given a bit more dimension – not as much, I’d say, but I still like what they do with it.  In addition to the new Jasmine stuff, I appreciate getting a little more time on Aladdin and Jasmine making a connection, the Prince Ali sequence is longer and has some really fun scenes in it, and I wasn’t expecting the movie to refer so specifically to people being trapped in the social castes in which they’re born (even though that’s obviously a part of the story of the animated film, they never say it, but they do here.)

But for my money, the best reasons for the new version of Aladdin to exist are, quite simply, Mena Massoud as Aladdin and Naomi Scott as Jasmine.  Both of them are really engaging in the roles, bringing the characters to life in a way that feels true to the versions we know and love.  I’m not familiar with Massoud (although IMDb tells me I’ve seen him before, playing – sigh – “Al Qaida #2” on an episode of Nikita,) but he absolutely captures Aladdin’s charm and enterprising spirit coupled with his insecurity.  He plays wonderfully off of Scott (who was in the recent Power Rangers reboot,) whose Jasmine is smart, tough, and passionate, a little guarded but yearning for more than the life she has.  I’m admittedly not quite as sold on Will Smith as the Genie, but when he’s good, he’s really good; some of the banter between him and Aladdin during the Prince Ali sequence is especially fun.

Warnings

Scary moments for kids and some “don’t try this at home.”