The Return of Jafar

Aladdin was a smash hit for Disney when it was released in 1992 for its fast-paced humor and creative designs and visuals. Due to this popularity as well as the success of the created-for-syndication Television program airing at the time called The Disney Afternoon, a sequel was put into play and considering the variety of stories that could be told from this Arabian night, the possibilities were fruitful. However, the payoff was not a proper cinematic sequel like many expected, but rather a direct-to-video sequel titled, The Return of Jafar in 1994. While it was definitely disappointing, people were still willing to give it a chance and see what it had to offer, and those results were not very delightful to say the least. A year after the events of the first film, Iago (voiced by Gilbert Gottfried) manages to escape from the lamp that he and his master Jafar (voiced again by Jonathan Freeman) were trapped in and decides to set out on his own and try to smooth things over with Aladdin (voiced by Scott Weinger) in order to get back into power now that he has moved into the Palace. While Aladdin eventually tries to help him after he saved his life, the rest of the group including Princess Jasmine (voiced again by Linda Larkin), the Sultan (voiced by Val Bettin) and the Genie (voiced now by Dan Castellaneta) have trouble trusting Iago, but over the course of interacting with them, Iago does start to enjoy being on the good side. That quickly changes once Jafar shows up after being freed from his lamp by a thief named Abis Mal (voiced by Jason Alexander) with plans of exacting revenge of Aladdin. With Iago caught in the crossfire of his new life and the fear of his past master, it comes down to his own decision to see which side he wants to be on now that Jafar has come awfully close to killing Aladdin once and for all. Going from the original 1992 film to this would not have been easy, as the downgrade in quality really shows how this was mainly used as an excuse to use the brand more rather than due to actively wanting to expand upon it. The story is incredibly weak, many of the characters don’t feel like they have much presence in their own film, the songs are forgettable, the animation has been drastically lowered, and it feels more like a pilot to a TV show than an actual movie, which is more ironic when it’s discovered that’s what its purpose was in the first place. It has its fans and it’s not truly awful, but as a follow up to Aladdin, it’s just a leftover product that left a sour taste in everyone’s mouth.

The already mentioned TV show pilot essence is one of the major factors to why this movie doesn’t hold up as well as it should. The entire plot feels incredibly weightless and secondary, almost like nothing in the long term actually happened despite it containing the return of the main villain from the last film. Some aspects have potential, like redeeming Iago is done passably and Jafar’s plan is actually pretty sinister and effective, but the actual story written by Duane Capizzi, Doug Langdale, Mark McCorkle, Robert Schooley and Tad Stones (who also serves as a director on this film) fails to capture the size and importance that the first movie did, and not just from an animation scale, but from the layout of the narrative, the actions of the characters, and even the simplicity of the writing. Considering that each of the writers as well as the directors for the film (being Tad Stones, Toby Shelton, and Alan Zaslove) all worked on Disney cartoons previously for the company, it gives a good indication why it turned out the way it did. The story is washed down and not written very well, the animation budget is smaller and even seem underwhelming compared to the other cartoons released at the time, the risks taken are smaller and seem to have no lasting consequences, the morals are horribly confused and feel like a last-minute addition, and the creative locations and possibilities that could come with this world are not taken advantage of. It doesn’t have a good grasp on who the main character is half the time, juggling between Aladdin and Iago at infrequent moments to the point of feeling incredibly imbalanced. While that can work in movies where the screen time equals out and both are given something to focus on and develop from, everything Aladdin does in his story is incredibly minimal and pointless, even down to a rushed unexplained ending. On the flip-side, Iago as the focus actually isn’t too bad, as the movie does a pretty decent job making people sympathize with him a bit more, allowing them to see him in a better light, and gives a character that arguably nobody really thought much of after his film appearance, and gave him some (for what the film is) decent development that makes him fit nicely into the group. With that said, for an Aladdin sequel, having Iago being the only character with substantial focus is weird and the entire movie does little to improve that. The climax is at least pretty cool, as while nowhere near as entertaining and visually stunning as the original climax, it manages to get some cool visuals, a decent sense of finality, a sense of fun action in an otherwise dull and slow experience, and even an effective yet pretty morbid conclusion.

The characters are portrayed in a way that you’d recognize from the first film, but nothing is done with them to make them the least bit more engaging, and it results in a pretty stale cast overall. Aladdin and Jasmine weren’t the most complex or interesting characters in the first film, but they were likeable, decently voiced and were charming enough as a couple to pull people through. Here the two of them are so bland and have so little chemistry that barely anything stands out about them at all. Genie is definitely going to be a shock for some people, as Robbin Williams didn’t return to voice the character due to complications that occurred behind the scenes between him and Disney, which resulted in them getting Dan Castellaneta for the part. Having Williams being one of the few voice actors from the film who didn’t return will already be a hard pill to swallow, but it also doesn’t help that Genie overall in this movie does very little and seems pretty useless most of them time, but now the comedic timing has been neutered due to lacking William’s voice and improv. You can tell Castellaneta is trying to make it work and it can’t be easy trying to replicate what many consider to be one of the most iconic animated performances of all time, but the writing for him is never good. As already mentioned, Iago’s involvement is at least given enough time to warrant some enjoyment even if his voice can be a bit much at times, it feels like the one idea that the creative actively enjoyed and wanted to make a movie about, so at the very least this portion of the film does work out. Jafar is still a pretty good villain, Jonathan Freeman returns back into the part very well, and seeing him as both the graceful slimy sorcerer and the imposing hellish-coloured genie adds some nice variety to his powers and abilities. Probably the only other person in this movie that leaves any impression at all is the character of Abis Mal. He occasionally gets some funny moments (thanks mainly to Jason Alexander being a pretty great talent all around) and is pretty memorable, enough so that he became a regular on the show they eventually made.

The visuals of the movie really are the most obvious dip in quality from one film to the other as would be expected from a direct-to-video movie. The animation is clearly a lower budget from the original and clearly that of an animated show, but even for what was expected of the Disney Afternoon content, this doesn’t reach that level. While it’s clearly trying and once and a while you might get a decent expression, some nice movement from the characters, and even a neat visual in some of the song sequences, but overall the colors are far less impressive with a lot of duller browns hiding what used to be a very vibrant world, there’s moments of repeated animation that is more obvious than usual, and a lot of the drawings lack that clean crisp look to them, which results in certain frames and outlines feeling faded and even unfinished at times, it’s a jarring jump from one platform to the other and even with its TV-show baseline, it could’ve looked a lot better than this. The songs are also pretty forgettable as well, none reaching the same level of catchy or feature the same passionate charm as the original. Jafar has a pretty cool villain song that features some chaotic visuals, but other than that, none of the others stick out and WAY too many are given to Gilbert Gottfried, someone with a voice that shouldn’t be in multiple song numbers. The movie’s writing can’t match the quick and modern style of humor that the first movie managed to make work, even though the movie had an additional eight writers working on the film outside of the four handling the story (and the fact that most of them are also writers for a lot of the Disney cartoons makes a lot of sense).

Return of Jafar was good in concept, but a failure in execution. Disney’s need to shell out unnecessary sequels matched with their obsession with turning it into a TV show, stopped what could have been a follow up that took advantage of so many likeable creative elements. The story is a simple tv show plot which doesn’t work for a movie, the characters all feel misused and badly sanctioned out between who should have focus, the animation is trying but can’t reach the same level as the first one, the songs are pretty bland, and it doesn’t live up to what a sequel to Aladdin should be. The sad part is that while the movie is boring and underwhelming, it’s not truly bad enough to be awful, just an all-around forgettable and pointless experiment of the times to see how well an Aladdin TV show went, and the movie actually did really well on home video (even becoming one of the best-selling overall by earning $300 million from its $5 million budget), so it must have been a favourite for some people. The movie clearly has its fans, and it could maybe satisfy someone who just wants more Aladdin, but other than that, it’s a failed wish.