Aladdin (2019)

Directed by: Guy Ritchie | 128 minutes | adventure, comedy | Actors: Mena Massoud, Naomi Scott, Will Smith, Marwan Kenzari, Navid Negahban, Nasim Pedrad, Billy Magnussen, Jordan A. Nash, Taliyah Blair, Aubrey Lin, Amir Boutrous, Numan Acar

Charming and mysterious. An actor that your gaze is drawn to, whether consciously or not, someone you have to look at. That’s how you could describe Marwan Kenzari. The native Hagenaar of Tunisian descent has something fascinating about it and after we discovered it in the Netherlands – Kenzari won a Golden Calf in that year for his impressive lead role in ‘Wolf’ (2013) – he shifted his sights abroad. Slowly but surely he has gained a foothold there, with roles in films such as ‘Ben Hur’ (2016), the reboot of ‘The Mummy’, ‘What Happened to Monday’ and the Agatha Christie film adaptation ‘Murder on the Orient’. Express’ (the last three all from 2017). Kenzari definitely puts himself on the map with his major role in ‘Aladdin’ (2019), the live-action version of the 1992 Disney animation classic of the same name. Our compatriot takes on the role of villain Jafar. Immediately after it was announced that he had been cast, the internet was buzzing with discussions. Because where Jafar in the animated film is not exactly mother’s most beautiful, the 36-year-old Kenzari would be much too handsome to play the bad guy. However, when you see this version of ‘Aladdin’ – the second in a row of four (!) live-action film adaptations that Disney will release in 2019 – it is that he looks and sounds way too friendly to be a terrifying bad guy. to play. Then his sultry side in ‘Wolf’ comes to the fore a lot better.

The story of ‘Aladdin’, from the ‘Fairytales of 1001 Nights’, may be considered familiar: street bum Aladdin (played by the Egyptian-Canadian actor Mena Massoud) accidentally stumbles upon a magic lamp in which a blue genie (Will Smith) dwells who grants three wishes. Aladdin wishes the ghost to turn him into a prince so that he can ask for the hand of the beautiful Princess Jasmine (the Indo-British Naomi Scott), who her father – the conservative sultan (Navid Negahban) – allows only royalty to marry . Jafar (Marwan Kenzari), the sultan’s grand vizier, is after power and tries to get his hands on the magic lamp himself. The events are all set in the kingdom of Agrabah, portrayed in this film as a brightly colored, overcrowded idyllic city-state that clearly sprang from the mind of an over-creative set designer. But hey, it’s okay to unpack in a Disney spectacle. The fact that John August (“Big Fish” (2003), “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory” (2005)) and Guy Ritchie (“Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels” (1998), “Snatch” (2000), ” Sherlock Holmes’ (2009), who also directs this film, wrote the screenplay, sounds promising. It’s all the more disappointing that they barely managed to give the story their own twist. ‘Aladdin’ is a 95 percent copy of the animated film; one of the few ways that has attempted to give a modern twist to the whole thing is by making Jasmine a feminist: she has the ambition to become a sultan, even though that role has never been filled by a woman. This half-hearted attempt to translate the story into the twenty-first century is truly a missed opportunity.

The casting of the actors was food for discussion on the internet beforehand. ‘Aladdin’ was absolutely not allowed to become a second ‘Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time’ (2010). That film was criticized because white (arrival) actors like Jake Gyllenhaal and Gemma Arterton were cast in the lead roles. The choice to go for diversity for ‘Aladdin’ works out well. Mena Massoud in particular is a discovery: the charming Canadian jumps off the screen and dances, sings and ‘parkours’ as if it were no effort at all. His chemistry with Naomi Scott is compelling. She also performs well. ‘Our’ Marwan Kenzari, as mentioned, lacks the threat of portraying a legendary villain – in this film at least – although he does get some more space towards the end to show what he has to offer. There has been a lot of talk about the casting of Will Smith in the role of Genie. That has not so much to do with himself, but with the footsteps he has to fill: those of the late Robin Williams. The comedian, who died in 2014, made the blue ghost his own when he voiced him in the animated version. And people are going to compare anyway. But that’s not fair to Smith, who has kept very sensibly close to himself and imbued the Genie with a personality in his own way. Although his blue alter ego continues to have something disturbing because of the computer techniques used… Fortunately, he is not blue and bloated all the time!

The music from the animated film ‘Aladdin’ moved into the live action version and got a ‘Will Smith update’, especially the visual spectacle around ‘Friend Like Me’ and ‘Prince Ali’ (bombastic in a positive way) impress. Massoud shows off his amazing dancing skills in a musical scene in which Smith controls him as if he were a puppet. The most legendary song from ‘Aladdin’, ‘A Whole New World’, including a flight on the magic carpet, unfortunately does not live up to the high expectations. The only new song in the film is ‘Speechless’, sung convincingly by Naomi Scott. After a short teaser at the beginning of the film, this feminist power ballad is only fired at full speed at the audience towards the end of the film; a little late to really give your message an impact.

You can go two ways with live action adaptations of successful animation films: if the director knows how to make the film completely his own, as Jon Favreau did with ‘The Jungle Book’ (2016), for example, then success seems assured. However, if the makers stay too close to the original and they don’t know how to give it their own twist, they will always lose out compared to the animation film, no matter how much money or whatever modern computer techniques are thrown at it. We saw that before with ‘Beauty and the Beast (2017) and now with ‘Aladdin’ again. It’s that the credits say this is a Guy Ritchie movie, but it might as well have been directed by another filmmaker. Despite that lack of its own ‘face’, ‘Aladdin’ is an entertaining spectacle film with two talented and extremely charming young protagonists, a Will Smith who mainly enjoys being himself and a compatriot for whom this role will hopefully open doors to a major international breakthrough. Because even though he can do much better than he shows here, we definitely wish Marwan Kenzari his success.