Stumbled onto Arabian Nights

Yesterday, after a round of souvlaki we found ourselves in a movie theater in the very first row (this is relevant later on), watching the live adaptation of Aladdin. If you have access to the internet you would have seen that the reviews were far from positive. But as I have a soft spot for anything Aladdin, I would not let a couple of bad reviews stop me from paying money to watch it.

I should have. First of all, this will not be one of these posts arguing that there is no point remaking Disney classics, cashing in on nostalgia and failing to come up with original ideas. Not that that is not true, but this has happened to numerous movies, so you know, fine! I really liked the live adaptation of Beauty and the Beast. It was brilliantly cast, it stuck to the original storyline with a few welcome additions (eg. Why the people of the village were unaware of the enchanted castle) and the shot for shot replication was touching. But, as with all blockbusters, after this successful live adaptation, the next one seemed rushed and sloppy.

Just like everyone else I was more confused than anything that this was directed by Guy Ritchie. Were Aladdin and Jafar going to solve their differences on a boxing ring, with rats running around and all of that shot in grey? And then I realized what Guy Ritchie directing meant in this case. It meant I should not have eaten a souvlaki and sat in the first row. That camera was on its own private roller coaster, rushing through the streets of Agraba and toying with my vomit. The song numbers were nicely shot though, good thing they fixed the CGI for Genie. But why didn’t Guy Ritchie make sure that Jafar looked either menacing or foul rather than pitiful? Weird choice, should have cast the guy from Snatch that arranged the dog fights.

I’m guessing they got Guy Ritchie so they could have two names that people had heard of, including Will Smith. Do not get me wrong; kudos to Disney for not white-washing Aladdin and kudos for getting new faces and sky-rocketing them to fame. That two-name comment was more of a joke than an actual criticism. But let’s get back to the white-washing thing. There has been a lot of talk in Hollywood about accents and how ridiculous it is to have actors do broken English accents in non-English settings. Let me explain this sentence I wrote that makes little sense. Would Aladdin, Yasmine and the people of Agraba in Middle East Asia speak English? No. But for the purposes of the movie, the purpose being us understanding them, they are. So, is there any point in them having an accent? No, it is translated anyway. So the movie half did this. Meaning the central cast had clear accents, but everyone else had ‘Arabic’’. I burst out laughing, honestly. It is a good thing the merchant understood Aladdin with that weird manner of speaking he had. And say, Yasmine and the people of the palace are meant to have different accents because they are higher born or whatever. Why does Aladdin have a different accent to all of his peers? Maybe Abu taught him.

These are but details. This next complaint is a long one.

Aladdin is a story about a poor boy, that was seen as a ‘street rat’ because he was born among the ‘rough’, but instead was a ‘diamond’. That boy gets an all-powerful Genie, and momentarily gets blindsided by his good fortune and changes for the worst. But towards the end of the movie realizes that what matters is what’s inside and not whether you were born rich or poor. I am assuming whoever is reading this over 12 may find this overly simplistic, but it is a pretty good premise for a children’s film. And a pretty complete one too. Aladdin has a full character arc, a justified arc. But no, they had to make Yasmine sultan to pretend they are feminists. Yasmine is already one of the fiercest princesses in Disney; she defies orders, she insists on marrying out of love and not necessity, resists Jafar and ultimately manipulates him in order to defeat him. She is great! My personal favourite! But this movie decided that she needs to sing an oh-so-cheesy song named ‘I will not be silenced’ and defy the chronological context of the movie by becoming sultan. And what was most frustrating for me was that she claimed she wanted and ‘should be’ sultan because she loved, understood the people and as a ruler would do what was best for them. It is amazing how much you can understand about common people’s needs when you are a princess that has never been outside the castle. She stole bread from a merchant to give to two starving children; noble, for sure, but not an effective economic strategy. In that case, Jafar might have been better suited. He did say he came from the streets (that sounds more gangsta than intended) and rose to the second, nay first, most powerful man in Agraba. He possibly understands them a little bit better, because he has lived among them and escaped the rough himself, even though he was far from a diamond. They gave Yasmine this unfounded focus, without any events supporting it, without a character arc and it just felt forced and undeserved. It was done to be done. It was quick and sloppy.

Again, the comparison is inevitable. Beauty and the Beast showed Belle invent a washing machine, learn how to read, want more ‘than this provincial life’, make her own decisions, change a man and sacrifice herself for her father… And have Stockholm syndrome and eventually just observe while the beast fought off the villain. But it made sense! Her feminist portrayal worked because she was the main character and it was her story, The beast ultimately fighting off the bad guy also made sense because he got a proper character arc. I applaud the intention to introduce stronger feminist messages into these movies. But if they wanted to include these feminists messages, they should have given Yasmine a character arc rather than a song she sings to herself. Or have her play a more integral role in the outcome. Or have someone else write the script for this stupid adaptation.

The only thing I will say, is that I cannot account for how this message may register to a child-girl (yes, I am an alien). It may be that this a good way to tell a young girl that she can be whatever she wants, even if they say only boys can be sultans. I am sure kids won’t focus on the ‘they do not have electricity, they probably would not have a female sultan’ and maybe some little girl will sing that awful song and feel empowered. In that case, my opinion is irrelevant. Not necessarily wrong, but irrelevant.

I could talk about Will Smith as the Genie, I mean he was no Robin Williams, he would never be, but I think he practically saved this movie. But as you may have understood by now, this blogpost was a poor excuse for me to bitch about Yasmine’s poorly developed, distracting subplot. I should have been upfront, I apologise. Aladdin is my favourite film so I am very, very biased and more disappointed than I should be. Will I give my money for another live adaptation of a Disney film? Probably. I mean Lion King is coming up. But in the future I might trust the reviews a bit more. And Guy Ritchie a bit less.