I’m “biast” (con): …but see no need for these live-action remakes
(what is this about? see my critic’s minifesto)
Disney’s current self-imposed chore of mounting live-action remakes of all of its animated films continues to prove itself mostly an exercise in pointlessness and frustration with the second of its redos of the 1990s Disney Renaissance musicals.
I’m tempted to just copy-and-paste my review of 2017’s Beauty and the Beast here, because this new Aladdin suffers from all the same problems: it’s a watered-down pastiche of itself, like one of those on-ice horrors, or the movie equivalent of how a musical’s soaring and enrapturing character showtunes get deliberately blandified and drained of all personality for the end credits on their way to the pop charts. This Aladdin appears to have been shot at the Arabia Pavilion at Epcot Center — the one that doesn’t exist yet, but surely will soon — its setting of the invented city of Agrabah a clichéd delusion of the Middle East. It’s somehow even more cartoonish for being live-action, and about as authentically exotic as a shopping-mall food-court kiosk: Halal Dolly, anyone? (Don’t worry: Aladdin is entirely free of even the most oblique reference to Islam. Wouldn’t want to scare off the bigots.)
Like 2017’s Beauty and the Beast, 2019’s Aladdin inevitably lacks the mojo of the original animated version, and it’s difficult to see how anyone could have imagined it would be otherwise. But surely this was made even more challenging with the assignment of this movie to director Guy Ritchie, whose filmography is full of gritty crime capers, even when gritty-crime-caper is wildly inappropriate, as with his last movie, the all-misfire King Arthur: Legend of the Sword. Ritchie is not exactly known for tripping the light fantastic, but we can at least be grateful that he didn’t go full Ritchie on “street rat” Aladdin.
But the director seems hesitant — or unable — to embrace that ineffable daydreaminess that makes a musical work. A musical shouldn’t be this clunky! (Or, indeed, any clunky.) Characters here awkwardly break into stilted snippets of song at intervals that feel random; there’s no organic, melodic flow, and the musical numbers seem intent on crushing out emotion rather than giving voice to it. It’s as if the movie only reluctantly accepts that it’s a musical at all. The parade of the big showstopper number, “Prince Ali,” might as well be a daily procession at Disney World; it’s weary and rote, not in the least bit magical. The shoehorned-in new song, de rigueur if one hopes for an Oscar nomination, is a sub-par go-girl ballad for Princess Jasmine, an embarrassment next to the glorious 1992 songs by Alan Menken, Howard Ashman, and Tim Rice.
The story is lifted intact from the 1992 movie, with the street urchin Aladdin (Mena Massoud) wooing the royal Jasmine (Naomi Scott: The 33), daughter of the sultan (Navid Negahban: 12 Strong, American Assassin) of the city-state of Agrabah, with the help of a Genie (CGI’d Will Smith: Bright, Collateral Beauty), who disguises Aladdin as a suitable princely suitor for the princess. Except the new script, by Ritchie and John August (Frankenweenie, Dark Shadows), somehow manages to pad out the original film’s 90 minutes by an additional 40 minutes without feeling like it’s done anything substantial with all that extra runtime. It is, however, now a solid 40 minutes into the movie before we even get to the Genie, who was the real draw of the 1992 film, thanks to a thoroughly bonkers voice performance by Robin Williams. And suddenly it kind of makes sense that the movie had seemed unenthusiastic about introducing us. Smith probably would seem more charming and funny if we didn’t have the improvisational fleetness of Williams to compare it to… but we do have that, and it’s impossible not to compare the two performances. Worse, despite the obvious boatloads of money thrown at the film, the CGI that transforms Smith into a giant blue Genie who floats on a gaseous, legless lower body is often uncomfortable to look at, for the usual uncanny-valley reasons but also because, in an unacceptable failure of craft, his sightlines are often completely wrong, and he appears to be looking somewhere other than where he ostensibly is.
This new Aladdin is perhaps the first instance I can recall of being sorry that I saw a film in IMAX: the huge format only amplifies the movie’s problems… which also include a total lack of chemistry between the romantic leads and the complete lack of any bite at all on the part of the villain, Marwan Kenzari’s Jafar, vizier to the sultan. It might be a whole new world here, compared to the original cartoon, but it’s certainly not a better one.
Really interesting review. I would just mention (because he’s one of my favourite lyricists) that, due to Howard Ashman’s tragic death, Tim Rice also contributed lyrics to the most of the songs from the (fantastic) animated original.
I haven’t seen the movie (yet), but saw the snippet from ‘Prince Ali’, and it just seemed so…..bargain basement / DisneyWorld-esque.
Yes, you’re right. I’ve added Rice to my review. Thanks for the reminder.
100% agree! But somehow this movie is very divisive.
I get a lot of angry comments on my review on YouTube
I am expecting lots of angry comments here too.
I count six short, snippy comments so far saying your review is dumb, all from people with one word screen names. I suspect they’re all the same person.
you are doing great job as guarding doggy you earned your cookie m8.
You are banned, and your comments — from all your usernames — deleted.
And you would be correct.
There do seem to be audiences who really respond to the nostalgic pull and surface glitz of these remakes in a positive way. I was upset by how bad the “Beauty and the Beast” remake was but the middle-aged ladies around me — my demographic — at the opening day screening I attended said they loved it. Also, with the world as (openly) troubled as it is right now, people not liking lighthearted feel-good corporate fluff like this will get picked on for “overanalyzing” and such and such.
The trailer had the faintest of faint hints at what they could have done with this project:
Why not hire one of the top Indian musical directors and make Aladdin a huge Bollywood spectacular with the sort of budget and production value you can only get in an American blockbuster? Bringing the fun and charm of the Bollywood musical to a mass Western audience. Sure, it’d be a watered-down Epcot Bollywood, but the Disney brand is *built* on that sort of thing, and they’re really, really good at it.
The more I think about it, the more it seems like a total no-brainer approach.
What a brilliant idea. That really does seem to be a huge missed opportunity.
Another “if I was running Disney” idea:
If you’re going to do this live action adaptation of past hits thing, don’t put Walt Disney Pictures in charge. Instead, give the program to Disney Parks!
Who better to grok the essence of what people like about Disney films and put them in a different context? And while things like the Little Mermaid stage show may not be great works of art, there aren’t many little kids who leave Walt Disney World unhappy.
I’m a capitalist, I’ve got nothing against cash grabs, but make them GOOD cash grabs at least!
Or, you know, just film the Broadway productions. Julie Taymor’s The Lion King has fantastically creative costumes and puppetry, and lots of great music beyond what the original film had. When I found out that the new film wasn’t going to use the Broadway songs, it struck me as another missed opportunity. I mean they managed to cast BEYONCE as adult Nala, and they’re not going to give her a chance to sing THIS? C’mon.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2QIi51EjLo4
Huh, that’s extremely weird. My take on the Lion King is that the remake can only be justified if they cast actual live lion actors. :)
Just do *something* to justify the existence of these movies! Disney is presumably making them because they’re neatly guaranteed to make money. But if that’s the case, it also means you can have fun with it!
Just roaring all the time, with all the dialogue in the subtitles. :-)
Exactly! Just like that famous hit also owned by Disney, the Star Wars Holiday Special!
I love the soundtrack from the musical. We saw it in Chicago a while back. I bought the soundtrack because it was so good. Definitely a lost opportunity.
Agree on the villains (especially the egregious lack of Gilbert Gottfried’s voice as Iago) and the mild discomfort with the “Wait a sec…is this really a musical?” mindset. Disagree on pretty much everything else. The 1992 Robin Williams powered version is one of my all-time animated favorites, but it will not age as well as the live-action remake simply because of the pop culture references (who really gets William Buckley, Arsenio Hall, Taxi Driver, or H. Ross Perot anymore?). Aladdin pulls off an exceedingly difficult tightrope walk between honoring the predecessor and bringing something new to the table, including a stronger character arc for Jasmine. Maybe not a true Cave of Wonders, but certainly not blunders.
I don’t know — while the original’s pop culture gags are dated, so are a lot of the similar gags in Looney Tunes shorts, and they can still be enjoyed on a surface goofy level…
Don’t disagree, Rori. And I’m not arguing that Live-Action-Aladdin is actually the superior movie. Just sayin’ it’s not the disaster Johanson makes it out to be. And I think that in 50 years people will be wondering about a lot of Williams’ improvisations and that won’t be an issue for this version.
I appreciate when people give thoughtful disagreements, rather than just sniping that it’s bad.
I didn’t know what any of those references meant as a nine year old, but I still enjoyed Williams’s performance.
Agree, Jurgan. Williams’ performance elevates the original in a way that I don’t think can ever be duplicated. In defense of Will Smith, I thought he did a really great job of balancing respect for the original while bringing his own unique take to the role.
Jasmine doesn’t have an arc here, though. She starts out the movie wanting something, never wavers on that, and ultimately gets it. That’s not a journey.
Disagree. Granted the arc isn’t magnificent, but it’s more than the original where all she wanted was to find a suitable prince to marry. In this version she’s suffering under the traditions that have predetermined her fate, but takes a stand at critical moment and changes the mind of Hakeem. Of course, that doesn’t deter Jafar. But to say she doesn’t have an arc at all…do not agree with that.
Yes, it’s different from the original film, but it’s still not an arc. An arc is about change and growth. But she is the same person at the end of the film that she was in the beginning. She is the epitome of a cliché that needs to die: a “perfect” woman who exists in the story only to help a man on *his* journey of change and growth.
Obviously we disagree. I think she absolutely was different in the end and have pointed out the specific point where she changed. Changed to the point where her father recognized her courage and strength and named her Sultan. You can argue that those qualities were there all along, but it was the crisis that revealed them. That’s change. That’s growth. That’s an arc.
I hate to belabor this point, but she didn’t change. Her father changed. So she helped her father grow too!
Well, MaryAnn. Since we’re both stubborn and both absolutely convinced we’re right….I reckon we just have to agree to disagree. Enjoy your day, ma’am!
One of those times when I thoroughly enjoy the general movie-going public ignoring negative criticism:
“Aladdin” did better than expected, grossing an estimated $86.1 million to take the top spot at the North American box office, according to studio estimates on Sunday. It’ll likely pass $100 million by Monday.
I’ve never understood why people bring up the box office when they’re arguing over a movie’s quality. First, huge ticket sales or high viewership don’t automatically mean people loved what they saw (ask everyone who saw Batman v. Superman, or the final season of Game of Thrones). But also, numbers don’t matter in arts criticism, and quality isn’t determined by consensus. Your opinion is neither validated nor invalidated by the number of people who agree or disagree with it.
It makes sense only if you view a movie as a contest you can win. There’s always a way the film can score points, if you want to prove “objectively” that your opinion is the most valid, and your favorite film is the best. If it doesn’t do well at the box office, you can say that the critics loved it, or vice versa. If neither of those things is true, you can point to glowing reviews from the few most discerning critics.
The competition can get even more heated when people really hate a film. They can claim that the “true fans” are the people whose voices really count, or that the film will never make a profit if you really examine the box office gross, or that the reviewers had a political bias. There’s always a way for your team to come out ahead.
Of course, if you don’t think a movie is a sporting event, and you don’t believe a review needs to be objective, then you can enjoy even the most oddball and widely-hated films without caring what other people think. You can even be thrilled that somebody else got pleasure from a film you didn’t like. Then both of you win.
There is, I suppose, an argument to be made that when people really adore a movie filled with sexist ideas or other stereotypes, it does actual harm to our society, but that’s a discussion for another time.
Hey Daniel and Bluejay, great points and I can’t say that I disagree with you for the most part. I guess my frustration with this particularly negative review is a sort of breaking point I’ve had with the trend of social media/internet tearing down of movies and TV shows as “OMG, that’s the most horrible thing ever!” The most recent example is the final season of Game of Thrones, but you can also include Star Wars: The Last Jedi and Solo in this category. None of those movies/shows are as horrible as the loud voices of the web make them out to be. I’m just tired that so many people now have a platform that pushes these views into news feeds everywhere. It doesn’t matter if you have a lifetime of experience as a tv/movie critic or whether you’re a college student who has managed to get an internship at some obscure website…your review ends up on Twitter, Facebook, or some news aggregator next to stories from AP, NPR, BBC, etc…giving you validity-by-association. That’s frustrating.
I would also say I don’t view movie criticism as a win vs lose discussion because there is obviously a whole lot of subjectivity involved. For me the heated discussion comes into play over points that I believe are poorly justified and unfair (as I truly believe Jasmine’s character arc point by this critic is). This particular critic’s review caught my eye because of the scathing language that she used. I don’t mind confessing that my pointing out of the box office numbers is a bit of a childish, “Hah, hah, told you so!” kind of comment…because I, like most people, can be sort of childish about things from time to time. But I get frustrated with critics who potentially ruin cinematic experiences for others with overly-negative reviews (like this one). I guess I would close this comment by noting that rottentomatoes.com’s new verified audience rating for the movie is 94%, an indication that those who actually saw the movie thoroughly loved it.
Anyway…yes. I ranted. I admit it. I’m frustrated. I blew off steam. But I do relish the chance to debate these things.
I didn’t do that.
Maybe you should read my reviews of those films, in which I also did nothing of the kind.
Dude, I have been here for almost 22 years. I think I’ve earned whatever platform I have, and it LONG predates social media and newsfeeds. I AM one of those critics with “a lifetime of experience” — the length of my experience would be able to drink, and would probably have finished a four-year degree.
Don’t read reviews if you’re that easily influenced. No one is forcing you to.
Why do you give these viewers credence if you don’t want to trust “a college student who has managed to get an internship at some obscure website”? You can’t have it both ways.
Just a couple of things. The post you picked apart was not specifically about you. I apologize for not making that clear. Still, you can toss out the first three quotes/responses because they’re not applicable to you.
I will add that even though that post is not specifically about you, that fact that you somehow think that your review isn’t blisteringly negative says a lot more about your mindset than any arguments you bring to this conversation.
Couple of other thoughts:
1) I don’t read reviews until after the movie. I enjoy reading. I used to enjoy reading critics. Until the past year or so. I reckon your review is the one that pushed me over the edge…and away news aggregators where things like this keep showing up.
2) I can have it both ways. While it’s true the masses don’t always get it right, your average movie-goer who rates a movie on rottentomatoes.com is a whole lot different than a click-hungry, headline-baiting critic trying to drive traffic to their website.
3) So congrats on 22 years of critiquing movies. Maybe your experience will buy you a drink and you can commiserate about how angry and mean people like me can be.
Is this the “motte and bailey” defense? You started by talking to Maryann, then when you were called out said you were talking about “critics” in general, and now you’re talking about her in point one while point two is a complaint about “click-hungry, headline-baiting critics.” So are you accusing her of being those things, or are you talking about generic critics again?
But it’s your justification for the comments you’ve made here.
I think it says you haven’t read any of my other reviews!
Is that meant to be sarcasm?
That’s a great way to put it. And sadly, there are people who think this way. I don’t get it. Either you like a movie, or you don’t, and what other people think shouldn’t factor into it.
Some people find conformity comforting.
So?
I had no idea this was already coming out this weekend. Came totally out of nowhere for me. It’s looked weird right from the beginning and no way will I see it in the theater.
Oof, but about what I expected based on the pre-release hype and how bad the “Beauty” remake was. I’ve said this elsewhere, but perhaps the world was only meant to have one live-action musical comedy in which one of the leads from “Independence Day” played an otherworldly blue creature…and that film was “Earth Girls Are Easy”. (Which actually feels more like what a live-action version of a Disney renaissance musical could/should be than these films do.)
Aladdin is one of my favorites. I will not be seeing the live action or ( stage )version. For me Robin Williams and only Robin Williams is and ever can be the Genie.
It’s a shame. I still sort of hope this will be successful, if not good, so that actors of Middle Eastern descent like the ones who play Aladdin and Jafar would get more opportunities in Hollywood to play something other than terrorists. Not that such should depend on this movie being successful, but you know how Hollywood is.
I worry about this issue too.
Yeah, Hollywood shouldn’t just cast for diversity in “the Middle Eastern movie” or “the Asian movie,” etc. I love Crazy Rich Asians, but those actors should be getting hired everywhere.
I’ve almost never seen a theatrical release in IMAX and felt good about the experience. Two that stand out were Attack of the Clones (everything had a CGI halo, though the edits forced to reduce the runtime under 2 hours do improve the experience) and The Hobbit 1 (though in fairness, it might have been the 48fps presentation)