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<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\nThe\nbig question surrounding the new live-action remake of Disney\u2019s 1992 animated\nclassic \u201cAladdin\u201d is, can the iconic comedic performance that defined the\noriginal be replaced and still make the movie marvelously magical? I\u2019m sorry to\nsay that the film doesn\u2019t pull it off. Alan Tudyk tries, but he falls short of\nGilbert Gottfried in making Iago the parrot memorable. Fortunately, you\u2019ve got\nWill Smith as an excellent replacement for Robin Williams as the Genie to\noffset the disappointment. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Disney\nbuffs already know the plot, but for those who don\u2019t: Arabian street-rat\nAladdin (Mena Massoud) falls in love with Princess Jasmine (Naomi Scott) after\nshe ventures out of her palace disguised as a commoner. He and his monkey Abu\nare directed by evil royal vizier Jafar (Marwen Kenzari) to retrieve a magical\nlamp that can only be taken by a \u201cdiamond in the rough.\u201d Jafar betrays Aladdin,\nso Abu betrays him and steals the lamp, which Aladdin rubs. Out pops a Genie\n(Smith) who is bound to grant Aladdin three wishes. Aladdin only wants one\nthing, the love of Jasmine, but she can only marry a prince, so he uses his\nfirst wish to become Prince Ali Ababwa and woo Jasmine with his flying carpet. He\u2019s\nso happy with the arrangement that he promises to use his third wish to set the\nGenie free from a life of wish-granting, presumably after he figures out what\nhe wants for a second wish. But his new persona is a lie, and Aladdin soon\nfinds himself ensnared in a moral quagmire, one that the suspicious Jasmine and\npower-hungry Jafar aren\u2019t exactly helping. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Some\nthings are changed from the 1992 movie, some aren\u2019t. Some changes are good,\nothers aren\u2019t, and the same can be said of the non-changes. The samenesses that\nwork can by nature be taken for granted, but the ones that don\u2019t make for some\nof the weakest parts of this movie. A lot of Aladdin\u2019s early dialogue and song\nlyrics are unchanged, and Massoud tries to put new inflections into them to\n\u201cmake them his own,\u201d but these lines were clearly not written with his voice in\nmind. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
As\nfor the changes, my favorite is the addition of a new character. Dalia (Nasim\nPedrad) is Jasmine\u2019s handmaiden who serves as sort of a big sister. She\u2019s also\na scene-stealing romantic interest for the Genie, who in this version disguises\nhimself as Prince Ali\u2019s human manservant, which thankfully means that he\u2019s not\na blue CGI blotch the whole time. Also high in the running for my favorite\nchange is a new song for Jasmine called \u201cSpeechless,\u201d no doubt added when the\nfilmmakers realized that Naomi Scott\u2019s voice was too good to be limited to half\nof \u201cA Whole New World.\u201d And I like the decision to have Smith take over\n\u201cArabian Nights\u201d at the beginning. He\u2019s not the best singer per se, but his\ncharisma more than carries the song, think Dwayne Johnson\u2019s \u201cYou\u2019re Welcome\u201d\nfrom \u201cMoana.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n
But\nevery time there\u2019s a change I like, it\u2019s cancelled out by one I don\u2019t. The\ninitial Cave of Wonders scene, a great source of suspense in the original, here\ngoes by so fast that new viewers probably won\u2019t know what\u2019s happening. Jafar is\nsupposed to be a miserable old man, but this newer, younger version just sounds\nlike a brat when he\u2019s delivering \u201cI\u2019ve worked for this all my life\u201d dialogue.\nThe less said about a rambling riff about jams, the better. And the movie\u2019s not\nimmune from the CGI ugliness that has plagued a lot of these recent Disney\nlive-action remakes. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The\nwhole thing averages out to a movie that\u2019s, well, average. Smith, Scott, and\nPedrad push the movie into \u201crecommended\u201d territory (and sure, Massoud and\nKenzari have a few moments as well). This new version of \u201cAladdin\u201d doesn\u2019t fully\ncapture the magic of the original, but it makes for a decent family viewing\nexperience. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Grade: B-<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cAladdin\u201d is rated PG for some\naction\/peril. Its running time is 128 minutes. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
By Bob Garver The big question surrounding the new live-action remake of Disney\u2019s 1992 animated classic \u201cAladdin\u201d is, can the iconic comedic performance that defined the original be replaced… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":43131,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[108],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43130"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=43130"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43130\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/43131"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43130"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=43130"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=43130"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}