How the genie got out the bottle...

Rating: 8/10 (26 December 2011)

A great typical family-oriented Disney feature gets a lift by giving Robin Williams pretty much the run of the place as a genie with a) an attitude and b) a gift for improv. So you get all the expected heart-warming romantic stuff and exciting chases and surprising intrigues but with that soupçon of the unexpected and, deal with it, belly laughs to boot. At a stroke, it broke the mould for countless Disney / Pixar films to come which appealed as much to kids as to adults, by catering to the would-be adults in all the kids and of course the universal kids in all the adults. If I was being critical, perhaps the background-settings could have wowed me a bit more, especially with the fabulous source-material and the vocal characterisation of the evil Jafar a bit more strongly delineated bu I'm probably nit-picking. As someone whose first book was the "Arabian Nights" at age 5, and whose only experience of the Aladdin story since has been mostly in local pantomimes down the years, it was great to see Disney's modern but traditional take on the story. The songs are good too, skilfully worded and not over-populous. Interesting to conjecture about the fact that this Hollywood production from 1992 was made at the time of the U.S. involvement in the first Gulf War plus I like the way it, if gently, challenges the notion of female roles in Arabian society, sadly still a topical subject almost 20 years on. Very funny, mildly subversive entertainment you can take your kids to - now that is a rarity in modern cinema.