MOVIE REVIEW: Aladdin (2019)
Let’s talk Disney! Who doesn’t love a good chat about Disney, after all, right?
The remake of Disney’s Aladdin is, I believe, the third of the remakes I’ve seen. The first was The Jungle Book, which set a precedent to these movies that Disney was going to question themselves and their original stories, as well as diversify the cast, and do better, modernize the concepts, and include more equality. The second was Beauty and the Beast, which is one of Disney’s most beloved stories and holds a personal, special place in my heart. They came really close to nailing it with that movie but it had a few issues that held it back, though ultimately they proved that they cared for the stories still and wanted to capture the magic and the essence, of the originals, and I did love it on the whole.
So here we are, finding ourselves at my third experience and maybe the biggest compliment I have for these Disney remakes is that they have been making me think. A lot.
First of all, people my age, in their mid-early 30s, grew up with the original Disney cartoons and we need to remind ourselves that these remakes are not made for us—they are still children’s movies, designed for children, and have not be remade for our enjoyment… they are for new children from the 2020s. That’s the main reason why I don’t have an issue with the full lack of subtlety in the messages anymore. It seems as though Disney was more excited to tell stories back in the day without worrying too much about the consequences of those stories. The 2019 Aladdin really drives home a few modern morals: you’ll never achieve your dreams by pretending to be something you’re not (in short: be yourself), and even more relevant, empowering women and giving them a bigger part in the movies and showing our strength.
Those are the movie’s strongest points. Have you heard “Speechless” yet? If not, grab some tissues and blast that song. No word of a lie, I have to control my emotions every time I hear it. Much like they gave the Beast a fresh new song in Beauty and the Beast with “Evermore” and knocked it out of the park, this time around Jasmine gets a song from her perspective and I can’t even. It is emotional, passionate, powerful, and particularly regarding the state of this horrible world, it’s so relevant. How this song wasn’t even nominated for an award is insane to me.
What else was great about the movie? Well, I was concerned about Will Smith as the genie, but he actually did a pretty decent job and benefits from just being so likeable on screen. He has the silliness that the Genie needs, even if he completely lacks the over-the-top nonsense of the late and great Robin Williams; his performance is muted compared to Williams but frankly, whose performance wouldn’t be? No one could out-act that guy. In a strange way, I feel like Smith may have held back in order to make sure people didn’t think he was pretending to be like Williams, and perhaps that was wise, though I personally think he could have afforded to ham it up a bit more—he’s likeable when he’s weird too, after all.
My biggest complaint then relates to the rest of the music. Much like with the story, Disney seems to feel the need to update the classic songs and they’ve yet to do a better job of any of them. “Be Our Guest” from Beauty and the Beast was lackluster in comparison to the original and as much as I love Emma Thompson as an actor, her auto-tuned voice has nothing on the sweet old lady magic of Angela Lansbury in “Beauty and the Beast.” This auto-tune was at its worst with Emma Watson in the role of Belle—everyone loves Watson and she was a great choice, but either she can’t sing or it was a stylistic choice… one way or another it just did not suit the old-timey French setting of the movie or its feel. The same can be said of “A Whole New World,” where they’ve added a really basic and way-too-forefronted disco/pop beat that really goes against the song/movie’s whole vibe in every respect.
This abuse of auto-tune and mandatory poppiness in the new Disney songs has been one of if not the worst quality of the remakes. Back in the day, they weren’t afraid to bring in Donny Osmond to sing “Make a Man Out of You” or have Brad Kane sing Aladdin’s songs, and now I am terrified to see what they do to arguably the best Disney song of all time in the remake of Mulan. In this case, Naomi Scott was a perfect choice for Princess Jasmine because not only is she beautiful and sweet (much like Watson), but she can sing. They didn’t need to auto-tune her at all, yet you can still hear a tinge of it in her song. Then go to songs like “Arabian Nights” where the auto-tune mutes the most dramatic notes of the song and never allows Smith to go as forceful as the original (if he was able). “One Jump Ahead” starts out perfectly but then takes a strangely modern-pop turn that just feels weird and out of place, just like in “A Whole New World,” possibly pandering to the simple tastes of the mass populations of pop lovers. Oh and Mena Massoud (aka Aladdin) is also auto-tuned. If we get into the classics like “Friend Like Me,” it’s actually not bad and the minor adjustments to the lyrics aren’t an issue. But wasn’t Will Smith singing (or at least rapping) back in the day? Why is he auto-tuned so badly? Please make this stop! If Disney are putting in such an effort to be more inclusive, I’d love to hear that included in the music… they could’ve added more eastern elements and less Western generic pop music and that could have added even more to the film and earned them some brownie points while they were at it.
Okay, now that that’s out of my system, let’s get into the movie itself. Plot spoilers from here on out, though if you’ve seen the original, I’m only talking about the changes between the two.
We’ve lost the little traveling merchant due to, presumably, racist implications, with Will Smith in the beginning as a father in a boat telling the tale of Aladdin and the lamp to his children, and then it moves on to a combination of Jasmine sneaking around town with Aladdin feeding hungry children with his own food. They’ve added some conflict between them with Jasmine feeling a connection but also thinking Aladdin is a lowly thief. She’s also, interestingly, less capable in the chase than her cartoon predecessor, but in a way that makes sense. Was it logical that Jasmine who had never been allowed out of the palace could vault buildings? Maybe not. This Jasmine was once allowed out of the palace, but hasn’t been out since her mother passed away. She has the strength and courage to try the rooftop vault with some encouragement and pull it off. In this iteration as well, Jasmine is sneaking about town looking after her people and seeing what their lives are like as a ruler, as opposed to just acting like a defiant youth, per the original. Once they escape, Aladdin deduces that Jasmine (using the name of her servant, Dalia) is a handmaid to the princess. They discuss their feelings about family and their place in the world, but she leaves when she finds that her bracelet was stolen (by Abu, not Aladdin). This gives him an excuse to sneak into the palace to see her again, where he is caught by Jafar and taken to the cave of wonders. This largely follows the original, though they find the magic carpet trapped, rather than just laying around. When Aladdin asks for a way out, the carpet gestures to the lamp.
This new scene was actually quite fun. When Smith makes his appearance as the Genie, he immediately demands to know where Aladdin’s boss is. It shows that in his experience, he’s only ever been summoned by people like Jafar and gives a good reason for “Friend Like Me” to explain his whole deal, while also fully explaining why he’s still enslaved—all of his previous masters had three wishes in mind and helping another was never one of them. There’s also a small change in that the Genie says that being free is being human, not just being a freed Genie (I’ll get into that at the end). However, the way Aladdin tricks him into getting them out of the cave this time felt pretty half-assed. They teased the idea of the wording of the wishes to be important—in the original, Aladdin says “Genie, make me a prince!” and they nod to that where Genie literally makes a prince for Aladdin in the palm of his hand, saying that it’s the wording of the wishes that can be manipulated, but they never really use this “monkey paw” logic to its full potential, particularly later on in the climax. In getting out of the cave, the only real technicality he breaks is not having rubbed the lamp before making the wish, which seems a feeble excuse. The original story wasn’t logically flawless, but it was a lot more clever than this.
Furthermore, they make an effort to explain the old question of “if the Genie makes him a prince, what is he prince of” by later having both Jafar and Jasmine question where Ababwa is on the map, yet they only skirt around this message when later the Genie turns Jafar into the sultan. I’ll get to that in a bit though. Prince Ali enters Agrabah and makes an absolute fool of himself in a truly cringe-worthy way. It makes sense that Aladdin—as a poor street kid—has utterly no idea how to act around these people, but I have to question a lot of the dialogue here because in the “Prince Ali” song, they changed “heard your princess was a sight lovely to see” to “heard your princess is HOT, where is she?” which was really weird (and way too modern) coming from the Genie who is later constantly telling Aladdin, as he greets the sultan and Jasmine a few scenes later, that he is doing a terrible job talking about buying her and things like that. So why did he fully objectify her in the song then? Confused… Well anyway, that scene is honesty painful to watch and it’s meant to be, but I was never a fan of those massive cringe-y facepalm-y movie types (think Meet the Parents) so this scene kind of just bummed me out with it’s over-the-top depiction of Aladdin’s failure.
Aladdin has a second chance when he’s nevertheless invited to stay with them and the Genie helps him dance (and maybe takes it a little too far, but that’s part of the joke regarding how unimpressed Jasmine is with this). Also, this is a good time to mention that I really love Nasim Pedrad (I know her mainly as Aly Nelson from New Girl) as Dalia the handmaid and the romance between her and the Genie was a fun addition that allowed for some cute, humorous moments. The Genie, enamored with her, takes Dalia out to give Aladdin a chance to chat with Jasmine again and the first hint that Prince Ali is not so bad comes in the form of a lick from Rajah. “A Whole New World” follows, including the “do you trust me” nod to the original, and again Jasmine calls his bluff by asking about Abu and he doubles down on the lie.
How Jafar figured out who Ali was is a bit less clear, though tying Aladdin to a chair and kicking him out a window into the ocean does make sense as a way to test the theory. Again, the update of “how did the Genie logic his way around saving him” was weak but not unbearably so. They expose Jafar much like in the original, though with more input from Jasmine this time, and the sultan expresses his approval of Ali and everything is turning up Aladdin! This, of course, returns us to the scene where Aladdin thinks he can’t pull off being a prince without the Genie and refuses to free him. After their fight, where the Genie calls him out on being just like his other masters, and Aladdin’s unknowing loss of the lamp, he seems to have a change of heart as he returns to his old home but admittedly, this change of heart felt a bit weak and could’ve used a bit more insight into why and how he realizes that the Genie was right, that he’s betrayed a friend, and that he has to tell the truth.
Now we get a little more of Jasmine being a badass as Jafar takes over Agrabah and has the Genie make him sultan. This was where that flaw I mentioned before comes into place and was never addressed: what did the Genie do, really, to make him sultan, beyond just taking his hat? They don’t explain this but rather focus on Jasmine, where she gets her “Speechless” reprise about not being silenced (Jafar tells her repeatedly in the movie that she should be seen and not heard). Jasmine comes in and asks Hakim, the head of the guard, what his loyalty truly means, and is it to a title (the sultan) or to his people. She makes an impassioned speech and the guard turns against Jafar, who then uses his second wish to become “the most powerful sorcerer there is.” Again, the use of wording here was a missed opportunity. If Jafar was the most powerful sorcerer “there is,” the Genie could’ve just made him slightly more powerful than the current present most powerful sorcerer in the world. Now, not wanting to get into sorcery and the other existing sorcerers of the world, I see why they didn’t go this route, so in that sense, they should’ve left the line alone and rather have him wish to be the most powerful sorcerer in the world.
Ali tries to sneak in and get the lamp but is caught in the act, stripped of his princely attire and banished to the far reaches of the world to freeze, though the Genie sneakily sends the carpet along to help out. Jafar (who, incidentally, is much younger in this version than the original) then decides to make the sultan suffer by torturing him until Jasmine agrees marry him to make it stop. During the wedding, however, Jasmine then steals the lamp and jumps off the balcony, much the way Aladdin did before their “whole new world” scene earlier, showing her cleverness and ability to learn from others.
Thus begins the chase scene, which is made pretty cool by sorcerer Jafar turning Iago into a gigantic monstrous parrot to try and retrieve the lamp. When this chase concludes back at the palace, Aladdin taunts Jafar with his own words from before and how he is still only second best next to the Genie (I wondered if this was a nod to 1994’s The Return of Jafar, which had a song called “You’re Only Second Rate”). After the taunting, they again go on the monkey paw rules of the wishes and when Jafar wishes to be the most powerful being in existence, I suppose the Genie interprets that to making him into a genie, though again, I think the original wish of becoming an all-powerful genie was simply a better way of putting it because the “grey area” the Genie is working with is… well, not as grey as I think it was made out to be. However, it still plays out much like the original and Aladdin of course chooses to set the Genie free, who then asks Dalia if she’d like to travel the world with him, to which she enthusiastically agrees. Smith’s character in the beginning and unseen wife are revealed to be the Genie in his human form and Dalia, as Aladdin goes on to marry Jasmine. Oh, and I think I forgot to mention one important thing. Jasmine is made sultan, not Aladdin. Her strength and ability to rule are shown to deeply impress her father who realizes that she is fully equipped to be the leader and ergo, she can change the laws about who she wants to marry.
So overall, I think the adaptation is really fantastic, it was fun to watch and did a great job of building Jasmine up as a strong, independent woman, while keeping Aladdin’s arc of insecurity, though it did have its flaws. Still though, I’ll fully say that whatever I didn’t like about the movie, they made up for with “Speechless.” I’m speechless because of that song.
PS: In the “Friend Like Me” scene, did anyone else out there see Aladdin and the Genie doing the death drops at the end and think, man, now I kind of wish that the Genie had been played by Rupaul?
