Will Smith in Aladdin, directed by Guy Ritchie. Image courtesy of Walt Disney Pictures.
I am viscerally opposed to Disney’s Great Remakening. The Lion King was straight trash. Dumbo provoked in me an existential crisis on the meaninglessness of life in a world of unending remakes. And I fully expected Aladdin to equal, if not surpass, these turds in terms of badness. After all, the pre-release images of Will Smith done up like a Smurf were hardly encouraging, and it seemed almost sacrilegious to re-cast Robin Williams’ iconic Genie.
But I will freely admit - Aladdin was actually, contrary to all the laws of human ingenuity, pretty fun! I have some thoughts on why this was so. The songs still hold up all these years later; they are fun and full of frenetic energy. And Guy Ritchie is particularly well-suited for shooting this king of whimsical stuff and there was an element of cheeky humor that surprisingly worked.
But most importantly, I think the production made a smart and necessary decision to kind of chart their own course, and not be too hostage to the original. This was by necessity, as it would have been impossible to recreate a Robin Williams performance. So Will Smith was given a lot of latitude to make this version of the Genie his own, and I think he did a remarkably good job of it. And the film itself re-imagines Aladdin as a colorful, fist-pumping homage that draws inspiration from the original, rather than a shot-for-shot remake. This gave it some room to breathe and be a bit more creative, even within the limited confines of the zombie IP it inhabits.
So, I am still virulently opposed to what Disney is doing with its massive library of old titles. But I have to give credit where credit is due, and this version of Aladdin was actually, shockingly, pretty fun and entertaining and not total garbage.
