Not as Agrabahd as I was expecting.

Rating: 6/10 (12 June 2019)

You all know the plot! "Street-rat" Aladdin (Mena Massoud) fancies Princess Jasmine of Agrabah (Naomi Scott). Her father, the sultan (Navid Negahban), only wants happiness for her. But the law says that she can only marry a prince.
Meanwhile, the sultan's evil adviser Jafar (Marwan Kenzari) perceives Aladdin as the fabled "diamond in the rough": the only one able to enter the 'cave of wonders' to retrieve an old lamp; a lamp that contains a genie who will grant the owner three wishes.
The biggest problem here is a 27-year old legacy from the late Robin Williams. In 1992 he embarked on 90 minutes of improvised riffing that the clever Disney animators worked around. How exactly does anyone follow that? Who exactly *could* follow that? As it is, Will Smith has a good crack as the genie, but only makes it to about 60% on the Robin-o-meter. He seems to be far less "street" in this film than his normal persona, perhaps being asked to tone it down by Disney? But this feels like a bad call. If he'd been allowed to 'let-rip' and ad lib, Williams-style, the film might have been a bit more dynamic.
Elsewhere in the acting stakes, both Mena Massoud and Marwen Kenzari both feel underpowered: Massoud can sing adequately for the lead, but lacks the screen presence to nail the role; Dutch actor and comedian Kenzari on the other hand is supposed to be utterly evil but comes across as mildly sarcastic with a side order of constipation. There are a whole world of actors out there who could go the whole "Billy Zane" on the role... but apparently overlooked.
In both cases - and in general for the whole production - the roles seem to have been largely chosen for their facial similarities to the animated characters rather than for their charisma or acting abilities.
The biggest change in the script, other than minor tweaks for current taste and sensibilities - "barbaric" for example is gone! - is the respect given to Jasmine who gets a thoroughly "MeToo" makeover as the empowered force for good behind the throne. She even gets her own song - "Speechless" - which gets a curious "snippet" treatment initially but which comes good in fine style later on.
And Naomi Scott is a revelation in the part, setting the screen on fire as a sexy, sassy and wise Disney heroine. Scott firmly sets herself up here as "one to watch" in the future. She is far and away the best thing in the film.
Also good as Jasmine's maid is Saturday Night Live regular Nasim Pedrad, who I spent most of the film thinking was Selma Hayak!
With four grandkids under 5, I always view these films with an eye to "suitability". In Aladdin, there are a few dodgy moments early on: 'henchman number 5' gets suddenly munched by the "blue tiger cave"; and Jafar - clearly to illustrate the depths to which either his 'sarcasm' or his 'constipation' can reach - tosses his hapless right-hand-man down a well to his (presumed) death. ("It's OK little one.... there was a BIIIIGGGG pillow at the bottom"). But other than that, and some possibly scary 'giant-Jafar' effects in the finale, the rest of the film is pretty innocuous. My one reservation for younger kids would be the 128 minute running time. It's a bit flabby in places, and cutting 10 minutes out of the run-time would help youngsters with a less-than feature length attention span.
Guy Ritchie has the unenviable job of bringing it all in, and I was not disappointed by the effort. There is a visual flair on show that made it very watchable. There are also some nice Disney in-jokes: the carpet builds the Disney castle opening titles (tinker bell arc and all!) and the genie conjures up "Fantasyland" on the map.
Overall, I went into this expecting to hate it, but I didn't. The songs lack the manic pizzazz of the original animated versions, but some of them still worked well: "Friend like Me" is particularly effective (I actually got to hear and understand the lyrics this time!). It's a perfectly fun way to spend a couple of hours at the cinema, and for kids, particularly those without the reference of the Disney original, will probably love it.
(For the full graphical review, please check out One Mann's Movies on the interweb or Facebook. Thanks.) ("Made you look")