This live-action remake is not able to deliver the same original magic seen in its animated predecessor, but when it does, it felt more like a romantic comedy - when it is bus

Rating: 5/10 (8 June 2019)

If you thought that director Guy Ritchie would bring no small amount of grit or courage to the fairy tale world of Disney, you would be mistaken. His take on the live-action remake of Aladdin, the latest in a series of remakes - we've just had Dumbo and Beauty and the Beast, and The Lion King joins this list in July - is a big-hearted fantasy musical with a gorgeous color palette and a strict moral code which tries very hard - but sadly does not quite succeed - in improving on the studio's 1992 animated original.Despite a couple of large, genie-blue stumbles along the way, Guy Ritchie's live-action version of Disney's "Aladdin" is on balance a colorful and lively adventure suitable for all ages and a touching romance featuring two attractive leads - Aladdin & Jasmine - and has enough creative musical energy to introduce this story to A. Whole. New. World. Before anything else, there is, of course, the titular, Aladdin. He is a kind-hearted street urchin with a panache for stealing and a natural skill for parkour that seems ripped out of the otherwise charmless Assassin's Creed. Aladdin is both scrappy, determined and smart, and when he runs into a beautiful new friend who has gotten into a spot of trouble at his local market - a vibrant, colorful set which is obviously crafted on a soundstage. Obviously, he will help her get out of the situation. Soon enough, the pair are running, swinging, and singing their way through their home city of Agrabah, all to the catchy tune of the soundtrack of One Jump Ahead. While the mechanics of the meeting have been slightly altered and changed from the original animation film, even audiences who are not familiar with the 1992 animated hit will surely see what Aladdin does not: that is no regular gal, that's Princess Jasmine.Despite a few adjustments, the plot of the animated story remains the same: Aladdin is dispatched and sent off to a terrifying cave to retrieve a gold oil lamp for the crafty Jafar, who promises the young "street rat" a chance with Jasmine for all of his hard work. Aladdin finds the lamp, only to unintentionally keep it for himself. Will Smith's Genie comes into existence and strike up the insane song-and-dance sequences, and get jamming on a concealed identity narrative device that drives forward a zippy, lively and fun second act. While Will Smith does not appear as the Genie until the first hour, the propulsive nature of the film before he arrives on the scene keep things pumping right along until he arrives to blow the whole thing up with humor, charm, and astounding sequences that looked, quite frankly, totally insane when they were edited for television advertisements. The genie is not gay per se; in fact, the Genie gets a romantic subplot of his own, involving Jasmine's handmaiden, Dalia. Watching Smith's performance, one could certainly make the case that the closet can be even more confining than a magic lamp, although kids will see the character's prancing as a kind of silly clowning, which it certainly is. Halfway through this film, the titular character sits uncomfortably on a Rose Parade float while the Genie in his human form leads a ramshackle and tumbledown chorus in a spirited but mediocre rendition of the beloved tune, "Prince Ali". It is not the best scene that this new Aladdin remake has to offer, and it is certainly not the worst, but it is probably the key to decoding and unraveling the entire production. To be straightforward and harsh, this is not a movie. It is a cheap and of poor quality revival, specifically designed to appeal to audiences who think that, "that looks familiar" qualifies as entertainment. 2019's Aladdin looks so familiar that, if anything, it is hard to imagine why Guy Ritchie wanted to make it. Disney seems to have smoothed out all the wrinkles in the director's familiar, if sometimes oppressive style. Textured lighting schemes, dynamic speed-ramps, and energetic montages are omitted. In their place are flat pastels, straightforward action, and long-take musical numbers. If you did not tell anyone who directed this version of Aladdin and surveyed the audience afterward, no one would have guessed it came from the director who directed 1998's Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, RDJ's Sherlock Holmes or even 2015's The Man from U.N.C.L.E. The whole production seems to take place in a forgotten hollow space within Disney's Adventureland, a highly sanitized faux-urban sprawl where the poverty-stricken look fancier than anybody reading this review right now. It is a nice place to visit, the port city of Agrabah, but if you lived there, you would be bored now. Nonetheless, most of this new Aladdin is tolerable, even inching toward borderline entertaining. The musical scenes are decently shot and staged with a light, bouncy energy that almost justifies the film's bloated run time - 128 minutes is a stretch for any kid, let alone an adult stuck in a theatre full of kids, but everyone just might make it out of this one alive. Each frame is drowning in vibrant colors and packed with so many decked-out extras to the point that Aladdin's environment seems less like a typical CGI-enabled sound stage, and more like a real, actual, if bombastically stylish, world of its own. If you don't think about it very hard - although you probably should-, the remake of Aladdin might entertain you. But you would be a heck of a lot more entertained by watching the original films again. Or by going to a real-life parade. Or by watching Netflix. Or by reading a fictional book. In spite of that, there is ultimately nothing here that overshadows the original and plenty that will haunt my dreams forevermore. I suppose that in the current situation, where Disney's market dominance and supremacy is unavoidable enough to inspire any further Disney productions to be misfired, this counts as a win. I wish it were not so, but then I'd be down to just two wishes. I will save all three for something special instead. Haha. But honestly though, Jasmine for Sultan of Agrabah? I concur. She is the right leader at the right time!