Magic - literally - but....

Rating: Null/10 (12 October 2011)

The third out of the box in Disney's animated Renaissance, after a Mermaid and a Beauty, was Aladdin.
This is a terrific adaptation, full of excitement and magic and colour and movement and characterisation and music and story, all the stuff that Disney, at its best, is so good at.
And then...
I'm going to throw bricks at two of the things which everyone praises.
Tim Rice took over as lyricist following Howard Ashman's tragically early death, and the film is the poorer for it. Rice is not half the lyricist Ashman was, and I suspect that he doesn't bring nearly as much to the table in terms of theatricality, either. Rice's lyrics are functional and workmanlike - they do not have the panache and zing which Ashman brought to them.
Robin Williams. I love Robin Williams in straight roles, in comedic roles, doing stand up, as a raconteur, but oh how I wish he had not been cast as the genie. It is when the genie arrives on the scene that this film stops being Aladdin and starts being the Robin Williams show. He simply overpowers it. It is a tour de force, certainly, but it is out of place in an ensemble piece, where the characters should be stronger than the individuals voicing them.
For all of that, this is still a pretty good film.