Built-In Audience

Rating: 6/10 (24 May 2019)

Much like a Tyler Perry movie, or Transformers instalment, Disney's new throng of live-action remakes was destined to have a built-in audience. The fate of the legacy was decided on the success of the first attempt, 2016's The Jungle Book. Jon Favreau created a familiar, but thankfully not a cut and paste remake that showed the potential of truly fantastic CGI. A single human interacted with a remarkably life-like world and any reticence I had about the necessity of its existence fell away. More than being a well-crafted exercise in technology, it was a plain good movie. The following year, Beauty and the Beast stepped up to the bar and it was decided then that quality would likely take a backseat to familiarity for future developments. A taken-for-granted audience was guaranteed, and with a library spanning 80 years, Disney films could now be repackaged and digitized to autopilot a franchise. For all its occasional charm, Guy Ritchie's Aladdin 2019 is continuing a tradition based more on the Disney brand than the Disney magic.
Much like Beauty and the Beast, I can only briefly describe how marginally Aladdin departs from the animated feature. If the nagging thought "I've already seen this movie" doesn't bother you, you're getting exactly what you came to see. The street-rat one jump ahead of the lawmen, the princess in disguise, the Cave of Wonder, it's all there, confined to a box that won't spoil a single pre-conceived notion.
Nobody can deny that Mena Massound embodies Aladdin like he fell seamlessly into a mold. Naomi Scott plays Princess Jasmine as if a casting agent was given the directions, "Go find me a 25 year-year-old Sarah Michelle Gellar of Middle-Eastern decent," and find her they did. I don't know how much of themselves our two leads were allowed to bring to these roles, but I didn't feel much. When I first saw Will Smith in a pre-view, glowing blue and built like The Rock, I had to remind myself that there was no point in comparing anyone to Robin Williams. As Aladdin came to the second act, I was actually a little anxious to get to something that felt new. I can assure you Smith does not disappoint. Even while watching "Friend Like Me," I wasn't hearing Robin Williams re-packaged, I was seeing a gamble pay off. Will Smith has his own musical style and incorporates that contagious personality into a new genie that could have gone horribly wrong.
Almost as severe as the initial pullback fans had of Will Smith as the Genie, was Marwan Kenzari as Jafar. The animated character's sharp features and measured delivery doesn't lend itself to a specific actor I can think of off-hand, but Marwan certainly isn't it. As much as I would welcome a fresh anything to the feature, forgettable is forgettable.
What we can mark as a successful new addition to the Aladdin soundtrack is Jasmine's powerful Speechless. I would not have checked Aladdin as needing a strong feminine anthem, but this one was built to impress. The story arc makes a more progressive turn than any preceding genesis of the story and sheer effectiveness beat out an eye-roll. The same cannot be said for the film as a whole. Favreau made such a strong statement with The Jungle Book that I can't imagine July's The Lion King will be anything less than incredible, but Aladdin seems to be a precursor to an upcoming decade of safe remakes that will transparently play a numbers game. I can only hope the magic comes back to Disney.