DREAM GENIE?
HOLLYWOOD STAR WILL SMITH FAILS TO WORK HIS MAGIC IN THIS LIVE-ACTION DISNEY REBOOT
IF A blue genie emerged from a magic lamp and granted me three wishes, I’d contemplate using the first to completely overhaul the unconvincing digital trickery in Guy Ritchie’s musical fantasy.
Every time the army of special effects wizards casts a spell over this live-action remake of the Oscar-winning 1992 Disney animation, charm and believability vanish in a puff of smoke.
Fantasy and reality are at loggerheads throughout
Aladdin, never more so than in
Will Smith’s motion-captured performance as the inhabitant of the lamp.
Materialising as an oversized Smurf with an angry man-bun, the Fresh Prince feels stale and synthetic as he attempts to replicate the quickfire verbal gymnastics performed by Robin Williams in the original film.
The unlikely hero is street urchin Aladdin (Mena Massoud),
who falls hopelessly in love with Princess Jasmine (Naomi Scott), who must marry a man of similar social standing. Meanwhile, the Sultan’s chief adviser Jafar (Marwen Kenzari) plots to seize power using a magic lamp, which lies deep within a desert cave. He dispatches a clueless Aladdin to steal the golden trinket and the ‘street rat’ summons the Genie with a cheeky rub and uses the first of his three wishes to reinvent himself as a dashing prince.
The live-action Aladdin wisely pilfers the toe-tapping soundtrack from the 1992 film. Scott shares a gently simmering screen chemistry with Massoud and big musical numbers are beautifully choreographed for maximum visual impact.
It’s a kind of magical.