Hold onto something as you board Guy Ritchie’s magical “Aladdin.” The live-action remake of Disney’s 1992 animated classic is stellar and uniquely speaks to a company evolving with the times.
We are all familiar with the story of Aladdin: An orphaned pickpocket, Aladdin (Mena Massoud), turns into a prince when he discovers a genie (Will Smith) in a lamp in the cave of wonders. But, after that premise, Ritchie takes us on a relatively new journey incorporating a new romance between Princess Jasmine’s handmaiden (the always-funny Nasim Pedrad) and the Genie, a marketplace Color Run, and Jafar (Marwan Kenzari) at one point channeling his inner Game of Thrones Bran for an Iago-magic-carpet-ride chase. There are Bollywood-style dance sequences, plenty of monkeys and elephants — get excited, Yashar — and a Smith performance that would make Robin Williams proud.
Aladdin, much to the same rhythm as “Frozen,” correctly remedies some of the moral and motivational problems of many earlier Disney movies.
In the original animated film, Aladdin is a thief and eagerly and repeatedly lies to Jasmine once he is transformed into Prince Ali. Jasmine, lacking agency and put upon by regressive laws of Agrabah, is manipulated and lied to, only to forgive and disregard minimal character transformation because animated Aladdin only wants to be elevated out of street-rat status and, when so lifted out of poverty, does nothing to demonstrate that poverty was the reason for his immoral behavior. Audiences may forget it’s after the magic carpet ride, where they rekindle their romance, and not before that Jasmine uncovers, by tricking Aladdin, that he is in fact the street rat she was attracted to in the market. It’s at this point Aladdin tacks on an additional deception, disputing any account that Aladdin was somehow only using deception to gain an audience with the princess to demonstrate his true character.
In “Aladdin” on Broadway, the writers try to remedy this moral quandary by rehabilitating Aladdin’s character with an excuse that his crippling desire to make his dead parents proud is an empathetic psychological trauma the audience and Jasmine can relate to and that it excuses his subsequent deceptions.
However, the new “Aladdin” takes an entirely new tone. Aladdin, when he is lying or stealing, is “not being himself.” When he is “himself,” presumably Robin-Hooding for poor children or safely ushering Jasmine through the market on her own self-discovery journey, he is being the “diamond in the rough,” as in the type of character a princess or anyone else would seek. It’s also abundantly noted that, unlike in animated or Broadway “Aladdin,” Jasmine becomes sultan and by her monarchical power — Disney loves the monarchy — permits a law change that allows Aladdin to marry her.
This is to say that the new “Aladdin” hits notably powerful feminist notes that are incisive and necessary. A top-two track in the movie is Naomi Scott’s “Speechless,” a two-part song that, much like its title, reclaims a voice that was otherwise stripped away by the male characters and society at large. The scene in which she walks through the throne room erasing bad men is striking both as a piece of filmmaking and as a metaphorical rewrite of some films that let men off the hook for character issues that often come at the emotional and physical expense of women.
It’s peculiarly insightful and speaks to a new tone in Disney remakes that realistically address the plot’s impact on all characters.
Audiences can be suspicious of remakes of beloved movies, especially ones in a strong Disney canon formative in our upbringing. But I assure you this is a remake that is as colorful as it is coherent, suspenseful despite being predictable, as well as being a remarkable comment on modernity from a Middle Eastern folk tale.
Tyler Grant (@TyGregoryGrant) is a Young Voices contributor, who completed a Fulbright fellowship in Taiwan. He writes movie reviews for the Washington Examiner.
