The remake of Disney's Aladdin seems strangely unfinished

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It is understandable that it took some time for people to come up with the idea of a live adaptation of Disney movies. Aladdin directed by Guy Ritchie. The musical numbers Howard Ashman and Alan Menken in 1992 Aladdin are iconic. This is even more the case after the death of the film's original genius, Robin Williams, who brought a memorable and very personal performance style to "Prince Ali" and "Friend Like Me". So it is the idea that Ritchie – who specializes in speeding Police dramas, and never made a musical – would enter and capture the nuances of staging songs from a song. way worthy of the original vision was at best questionable.

But when you remove all the music, Aladdin is in his heart a film about two men, a heist and a big con – one of Ritchie's favorite dynamics. Seen through a certain lens, Aladdin speaks about a poor orphan (Mena Massoud) and the evil vizier of Sultan Jafar (Marwan Kenzari, who lacks all the necessary sense of the threat of Jafar) chasing a precious lamp from a mysterious place, then spending the rest of the movie to try to get it back from each other. Meanwhile, they bend the girl (Princess Jasmine, played by Naomi Scott) to a series of elaborate lies. Ritchie has had a career in fast crime movies like this one. lock, reserve and two smoking barrels, and adventures just as fast as Sherlock Holmes and The man from U.N.C.L.E.

The problem is, when you delete the music and animation, there is not much left to Will Smith and his happy group of newcomers to Hollywood. Aladdin adds a quick personal scene between Aladdin and Jafar, which gives Jafar a sadder hue in the background and suggests a significant connection between the characters. But this angle is quickly abandoned. Filmmakers are not very interested in developing these characters from their original two dimensions or the dynamic characters that make Ritchie's films unique. As a result, the entire business feels unfinished and unresolved.

As Pirates of the Caribbean, Aladdin open with children in a boat in open water, almost as if we were trying to unknowingly remind the public that it was once, Disney made successfully create a viable franchise from an existing property – and even though critics thought the series was useless and misguided, it was still entertaining. "We are still doing it!" Aladdin seems to blithely proclaim that the camera rushes to find a Will Smith decidedly not blue-skinned, maneuvering the sails.

Like Williams before him, Smith opens Aladdin with "Arabian Nights", a song whose lyrics were to be changed to reflect cultural sensitivity, even in 1992. The duo of composers Benj Pasek and Justin Paul (La Land, the biggest showman) have updated the words again for 2019, but for some reason they also make the song more than twice as long as the original version – a wild choice, since it ends up in the hands Will Smith, who is not really a singer, or even as convincing as a "talking singer" like Rex Harrison.

Ritchie uses two main ways for the story to continue to unfold: panoramic views of the city of Agrabah, beautifully rendered in the Middle East, and captivating clichés following the Jafar parrot, Iago ( expressed by Alan Tudyk), while it flies over the spying and reporting of other characters. back to the palace. The first takes the movie "Arabian Nights" to the heart of the city to meet Aladdin, who avoids Jasmine to have trouble in the market Agrabah. They instantly share an at first glance (which does not work as well on real actors as on their cartoon counterparts), then they embark on the race with an interpretation of "One Jump Ahead". is less a jump than a quiet trot.

"One Jump Ahead" offers early indications of everything that's wrong with Ritchie's Aladdin – mainly, that the music numbers of the film are somewhere between the very impressive show of Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade and one of the musicals for the little world of Wonderful World of Disney made by ABC. The film has all the expenses and the spectacle that it needs, but its performances go from the superficial to the most engaging. The world of Agrabah feels clean (and practically) constructed, filled with such color and such verve that it is even more strange the work of musical numbers. "One Jump Ahead" is slow, jerky and starts without fanfare. It does not help the brilliant frame rate choices, or the computer graphics that rob Aladdin and Jasmine's movements throughout the song.

"Friend Like Me" and "Prince Ali" also feel slow and extended. The film serves much better Smith's Genie when he interacts with Aladdin in human mode, without the bomb and with a hint of the charm that had made Big Willie's summer so long. He even gets a romantic subplot, as he falls in love with Jasmine's maid, Dalia (Nasim Pedrad, bringing to his role a perfect comic line) – a compelling update of the story. In keeping with Disney's 2019 fashion, Jasmine has her own freshly added music showcase to ensure the public understands how independent she is as a modern, independent woman. Her song "Speechless" looks like Jessie J's B-side, which Hillary Clinton rejected as the theme of the campaign around 2015, but it's one of the film's most appealing songs. The only hint of vocal bravery in this otherwise loveable film comes when Naomi Scott opens her mouth to pinpoint her musical intentions.

Jasmine's solo number offsets the staging of "A Whole New World", giving the impression that the film world is smaller and that the lyrics do not matter. (Why sing "Dare you not close your eyes" if no one closes their eyes? Where is the blocking?) But "Speechless" does not make up for the fact that the best and most energetic musical number of the film comes during the end credits – a version of "Friend Like Me" by Will Smith / DJ Khaled that could leave the audience wondering, "Why go see Pasek and Paul at all? Why not DJ Khaled for the full soundtrack, since the star of the top is a rap icon of the 90s? "

Perhaps two white men rooted in traditional American series tunes better possible choice to update the music wanting to inspire musical influences from the Middle East and hip-hop, not when the Palestinian DJ Khaled was just there. It was particularly frustrating to see the best number – the film's only true original statement of intent – at the end of the feature film, showing what the film might have been if the creative team had stretched its imagination instead of reproducing mechanically the original film.

It's a pity that Ritchie could not perform the musical vision Aladdin requires, and that the music itself was not more imaginative. The film has its positive elements and, with higher numbers, it could have gelled more efficiently. It would be nice to be able to say more than "Well, at least Aladdin is better than Disney's recent animated action movie Dumbo. "But at least that is better than Dumbobecause Disney is not going stop giving us these expensive, useless and generally very profitable remakes.

At this point, it's fair to consider Disney as the Michael Scott Paper Studios company, and paper. It does not matter whether these remakes are doing or not. It does not matter whether directors have unique qualifications or relevant experience because they are there to execute a generic business vision. It does not matter if they are delivered to a loud clamor and then forgotten by next weekend, or barely released a murmur. And it does not matter if some of them are actually well. Like Michael Scott, no matter what happens, Disney will simply continue to make these things and show them in theaters and on Disney Plus.

Fortunately (maybe) for the public, Aladdinof the the final piece is the best of the film. It could be that the drastic improvement of Dumbo at Aladdin and that Aladdin was able to finish on a positive note, indicate a trend of continuous improvement at Disney, while they are heading to the third remake of the cartoon this year. Maybe by the time they did The Lion King, whose release is scheduled for July, they finally understood the alchemy that would make these films more than noisy and awkward copies of classics. But given their recent history, probably not. Bringing Ritchie to his first musical was a mysterious but potentially justifiable choice. Asking him to produce a film, this generic and indistinct brings the project back to the mystifying world.

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