Ali Plumb reviews the mega-budget Disney adaptation, Aladdin, starring Will Smith and Naomi Scott

In this live-action adaptation of the 1992 Disney animated classic, light-fingered “street rat” Aladdin (Mena Massoud) pickpockets and backflips his way around Agrabah with his pet monkey Abu until he falls for Princess Jasmine (Naomi Scott) and things get a little… complicated. Like, rubbing-a-magic-lamp-in-a-cave-of-wonders complicated, releasing his new best friend The Genie (Will Smith) and earning a lifelong enemy in the form of Grand vizier Jafar (Marwan Kenzari). With three wishes at his disposal, all Aladdin wants to do is earn the love of a Princess… but Jafar isn’t going to make it that easy.

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Pros:

• Straight up, let’s acknowledge how good Naomi Scott is as Princess Jasmine. Not only is the character given some much-needed modernising, but Scott’s natural screen presence gives the role a winning, charming, powerful new edge that will make her, most likely, your favourite character. Yep, perhaps even above The Genie. What helps is the new song written for this remake – from returning composer Alan Menken, with lyrics from La La Land and The Greatest Showman’s Pasek and Paul – called Speechless, which is almost up there with Frozen’s Let It Go on the empowering, catchy musical pop front. But in short, Scott’s Jasmine is an absolute winner, very nearly taking the movie out from under The Genie and Aladdin.
  
  
• Without damning the film with too faint praise, the classic story seen in the 1992 original is a solid one, and it’s fun to see it get the mega-budget Disney treatment. There are some neat touches adding to Aladdin’s arc, giving more depth to his desire to pretend to be someone else, and Jasmine’s new best friend and confidante Dali (Nasim Pedrad) is a welcome addition, letting Jasmine actually talk to another human and not just her pet tiger (as adorable as Rajah is, no offence meant). More would have been nice, mind.
  
  
• The whole affair is, yes, flashy and splashy and nice enough to look at, but what’s key here is that the somewhat ropey special effects seen in the early press stills and teaser trailers are not as bad in the finished product. It’s often a problem with BIG productions like this one, particularly with motion-captured characters that need a lot of work as the design evolves, such as Big Blue himself, The Genie. There are not-perfect moments – and the inherent pantomime vibe that any Aladdin production has doesn’t help things – but by and large, it all turned out well.

Cons:

• There’s a reason I haven’t mentioned Will Smith much so far. It’s not that he’s bad, it’s that… he’s not Robin Williams. And, oddly, he’s not Will Smith – not enough, at any rate. Falling between two stools, Smith doesn’t do enough of his own material for my liking, recycling Williams’ stuff here and there in a way that feels a bit strange. When he’s going off on his own riffs, it’s great, particularly during a dance sequence and a recurring gag involving presents, but there’s not enough of that. It seems as if it’s going through the motions at times, and with Will being so brilliant, you just want him to shine. And, at the risk of being too cruel, some of Will Smith’s singing, especially early on, isn’t “Broadway” enough and needs a bit more polish. Sorry Will. Love you.
  
  
• This really does feel at times like a little too much of a retread. With these live-action remakes, what makes them work is successfully maintaining that really fine balance between giving fans of the original the same all over again – with a big budget and their favourite actors – as well as fresh, fun, interesting additions to the concept that add to proceedings. For me, Aladdin doesn’t quite pull this off as well as, say, The Jungle Book.
  
  
• I really do prefer my Genies blue at all times. I’m a stickler like that. Making The Genie look like Will Smith when he’s trying to blend in… I see what they’re doing, but I miss the old cartoon version when he’s blue all day every day.

Three word review: Not too bad.