IN THEATRES: Aladdin

You ever see the 1992 Aladdin? You got it.

If you were looking for an example of the vacuousness underpinning Disney's live-action remakes of its animated properties, Aladdin fits that bill.

A stilted live action remake of the classic Disney animation, Aladdin is never overtly terrible, yet it is remarkably dead movie. 

Almost every major element from the original get replayed here, but there is no sense of revision or joy - it feels like a group effort to tick boxes off a list.

The opening scenes cover almost exactly the same plot beats as the original yet feel strangely compressed and lacking context. There is a presentational quality to the staging and photography that undermines any attempt at building drama and tension.

Director Guy Ritchie is known for going all out with editing and visual tricks in his previous work, but he is on auto-pilot throughout. Even the action sequences and musical numbers lack verve - the 'Prince Ali' number feels grounded and stagey - filmed in a variety of long and medium shots, Ritchie conveys no sense of rhythm or movement. Even the set in which it takes place seems small and unimpressive (Strangely the most engaging number is the final reprise of ‘Never Had A Friend Like Me’, filmed in a wide shot with dancing extras and the cast choreographed in full frame. It is more alive and spontaneous than any of the other musical numbers).

Putting a white English guy in charge of remaking an orientalist fantasy is already on the wrong track (especially when the same studio is willing to back a movie like Black Panther, which feels like a mirror to this kind of western fantasy), and Ritchie compounds this by failing to do the things that he can do well - action and comedy. There is a universe where getting the guy who did Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels to make a story about a street thief conning his way into a palace should be a perfect marriage but this is a shotgun wedding where bride and groom are on sedatives. 

Underpinning all of this is a profound lack of meaning. This movie never feels like it is about anything, and even as pure escapism, it just feels limp.

The movie can not justify itself except as a corporate attempt to make more money off an old property. Elements such as Abu, the magic carpet and even the Genie lose character and personality - they were never meant to work in live action and highlight the difference between the expressionistic qualities of animation and the limits of so-called photo-realistic CGI.

It does not help that the movie’s overall aesthetic feels so sterile. Everything looks just a little off - it feels like it needs to be more stylised and over the top.

What makes it all worse is that every now and then, the movie offers (a few) sparks of life.

The recasting of Princess Jasmine shows promise - she is presented as an ambitious woman uninterested in marriage, but as with all the changes, it feels like extra shading to what already exists, rather than a fundamental alteration to the text. Naomi Scott delivers one of the best performance in the movie, but she is still limited by the movie's adherence to the '92 version.

Marwan Kenzari is also pretty good as Jafar - he underplays the menace, and has a decent motivation. And that's about it. Bizarrely, they neuter his bickering with Iago, which does not help.

As new character Dalia, Nasim Pedrad has some funny moments - and that is about it. Ultimately she exists purely to give the Genie a motivation (although, once again more could have been made of this relationship).

Every change in the adaptation just feels like doodling in the margins.

This even effects the movie's biggest star - Will Smith is fine as the big blue guy. He is charismatic, and he has some funny moments, but he can only juice up the movie so much.

Ultimately this movie is a zombie - it is familiar as something once living and has some interesting fungal growths, but it is still fundamentally soulless. 

If you are new to this blog, I also co-host a podcast on James Bond called The James Bond Cocktail Hour. Every episode, we do a review of one of the books and one of the movies, picked at random. 

In the latest episode we discuss the portrayal of women in the Bond franchise. Subscribe on iTunes, or wherever you get your podcasts!