A Re-imagining of a Disney Classic Without Much Imagination

Rating: 5/10 (29 May 2019)

GRADE: C
THIS FILM IS MILDLY RECOMMENDED.
IN BRIEF: Despite nice visuals, this movie is a lame retelling that is misdirected and generally miscast.
JIM'S REVIEW: In 1992, a smart little animated musical called Aladdin brought forth its magic in the form of a wise-cracking blue genie, played by the late great Robin Williams and a wonderful original musical score by the team of Howard Ashman, Alan Menken, and Tim Rice. Today, the Disney Studios rest comfortably on their previous laurels and have raided their vault to resurrect their former artistic treasures yet once again. Forsaking their hand-drawn animated talents, the filmmakers re-envisioned this timeless story to become a live action / CGI adventure fantasy, more in tune with today's modern audience with shorter attention spans and insatiable action demands. (This practice seems to a repeated pattern of late, with wildly mixed results: works like The Jungle Book and Cinderella meshed quite nicely, others like 101 Dalmatians, Beauty and the Beast, and the recent Dumbo paled by comparison.)
So where does this latest effort rank among all these sequels? It takes the middle ground in so many ways...entertaining but innocuous enough, a big budget production full of color and splash but lacking in grandeur and cleverness. Aladdin (2019) is re-imagining without much imagination.
The film essentially follows the same storyline as Aladdin (Mena Massoud), that poor lovable thief, falls in love with his princess, Jasmine (Naomi Scott). Yet, the movie sacrifices the joyous bounce of a musical for more serious action and silly thrills. Unlike its predecessor, the film is devoid of comedy and delivers only a few musical interludes.The disjointed screenplay by John August and Guy Ritchie disappoints with its lack of wit, humor, and emotion. Where is the fun, let alone, the magic?
Mr. Ritchie is a good director of action films, but his scope is limited with musical genres.He is certainly the wrong directing choice for any musical and is more concerned with kinetic quick cuts and non-stop action set pieces. He stages his movie with a flurry of chases and continually downplays most of the musical numbers as mere throwaways. Mr. Ritchie stresses the fancy CGI visuals and paces his movie with complete disregard for the basic elements of a movie musical. Singing and dancing are almost non-existent as filmed. (There is a nice Bollywood feel midway through the movie that hints of what could have been achieved in other hands.) The choreography looks interesting, but is wasted. So much is photographed from the waist up or edited in such a frenzy that one misses the footwork completely. The voices are uniformly weak, except for Ms. Scott. In fact, the film is seriously miscast in most roles.
As the title character, Mr. Massoud is bland but serviceable. Will Smith plays the genie with too much hip hop flair and not much fun. He comes off as a glib imitation, never coming near the genius of Mr. William's comic riffs. Mr. Smith's patter of jokes rarely land, but at least, he is personable. His character is more of a street-wise Fresh Prince variety than Arabian prince. As the villainous Jafar, Marwan Kenzari is one note, although he never sings one note. The actor provides the menace as if he was cast in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, or worst yet, any of The Mummy movies. His character is performed with too much evil and nary an ounce of glee, without any trance of campy wickedness. It is only a very fine Ms. Scott who remains untouched by this overproduced and underwhelming spectacle. The less said about an embarrassingly bad supporting performance by Billy Magnussen, the better.
The strongest aspect of the film is the CGI. The visuals are extremely well done. In fact, the CGI animal creations: Rajah the Tiger, Iago the Parrot, and especially Abu the Monkey outact their human cast-mates. The Homo sapiens should have taken some acting tips from them. While no animals were hurt in the making of this film, most humans mangled their roles.
Blame must go to Mr. Ritchie for his misguided direction and the Disney Studios for green-lighting his action-themed concept. Moviegoers deserved a whole new movie version other than this sequel. This musical mishmash is far from shining, shimmering, and splendid.