Aladdin

Aladdin was arguably the first Disney ‘princess’ movie to be directly made for boys. While others of its type were still undoubtedly liked by boys and nothing in this movie says girls couldn’t get into it, it had a lot of elements that felt more tailors made for the male demographic, especially since it was under the Disney Princess guise. It had the male lead, it had high flying action, it had comedy, it was a wild rush of a film, it felt like it was trying to be different from its predecessors, and thankfully it didn’t disappoint any of its viewers. In the Arabian city of Agrabah, a street rat named Aladdin (voiced by Scott Weinger) is chosen by the evil sorcerer Jafar (voiced by Jonathan Freeman) to venture into the cave of wonders and retrieve a magic lamp. After being betrayed and left for dead, Aladdin discovers the lamp houses a Genie (voiced infamously by Robbin Williams) and he is given three wishes that he can use to turn his life around. His main goal is to pretend to be a prince in order to win the hand of Princess Jasmine (voiced by Linda Larkin) and feels he can’t do so without the power of the Genie. His plan could prove to go wrong sooner than expected however, as Jafar, who is also the Sultan’s (voiced by Douglas Seale) vizier, finds out about his scheme, and wishes to take the Genie’s power for himself. Without the power of the genie at his disposal, Aladdin will have to use his own strengths to stop Jafar, save Agrabah and prove to Jasmine, and himself, that he is more than just a common street-rat. Being the fourth movie Disney release during their Renaissance period (which was between the late 1980s to the late 1990s), Aladdin was incredibly popular upon its release, being the first animated film to earn the half-billion-dollar mark at the box office and stood as the highest grossing animated film of all time until it was surpassed by The Lion King two years later. The fast-paced comedy, catchy songs and imaginatively colorful visuals made it an easy favorite for younger audiences who wanted something different from the typical princess movie formula. When people grow up though, they still see a very entertaining well-made movie, but noticed the elements that keep it from being the perfect film they remembered.

The tale of Aladdin is very obviously in reference to the Arabic folktale of the same name from the book, One Thousand and One Nights. The filmmakers were unsatisfied with the story’s ending moral which they felt was backwards and inappropriate, so instead It became about not relying on false personas and being happy with what you are. When looking behind the scenes for this film, the movie went through several rewrites which led to a lot of material being cut from the final product, including several characters and even a few finished songs. This thankfully doesn’t bother the overall product too much as the story doesn’t feel like the main focus of the film. It’s not that this element is completely tossed aside as it’s a basic narrative that’s still paced well and leads to a satisfying conclusion for its characters, but it’s pretty straightforward, doesn’t offer a lot in terms of new content, and could have made the movie pretty interchangeable if not for two distinct elements: its humor and its creative environment. Aladdin is one of the first truly modern Disney movies, moreso in regard to how the world feels and how the characters talk. The world the film operates under feels a lot like a parody of the real Arabia, a universe that is more an exaggerated hyper-reality rather than one that’s realistic or even fairy-tale like, it’s a place where something like Shrek could operate in fairly well. Even Agrabah itself feels like a stage-show version of Arabia as opposed to the real thing and this show-tune type attitude follows through with the writing and all of the world’s inhabitants. It gives the world a bit more identity outside of the other fairy-tale-like stories and helps mask the otherwise pretty vanilla plot.

The line-up of characters for this film may not contain the same level of fairy tale memorability that other Disney properties beforehand, but they are still likeable and memorable roles that work well within this story. Aladdin and Jasmine aren’t the most engaging leads considering that they are both written in a very modern fashion and contain a lot of modern characteristics and themes, making them more examples of a message as opposed to feeling like fleshed out characters. With that said, both are acted pretty well, both are likeable enough to get through the whole movie with, both are given a decent amount of personality just through their lines and the animation alone, and in a nice twist for the time, both have romantic chemistry, and you genuinely buy and like them as a couple. Both are given easy dilemmas that the either helps solve, both are given time to interact plenty of times in order to fall in love, and their dialogue actively feels like they’re genuinely in love. Jafar is a pretty cool villain; with his menacing design, delightfully slimy over-the-top voice acting by Jonathan Freeman, and complete maniacal joy for doing evil, makes him an instantly iconic Disney baddie. Some of the side characters work okay; The magic carpet surprisingly has a lot of personality despite never talking, and the Sultan is a pretty likeable doofus, and while characters like Abu and Iago voiced by Gilbert Gottfried are more annoying than anything, they don’t hurt the film too much. Easily the most iconic performance and role from this film is the late Robbin Williams as the Genie. He became so infamous in the role that he’s stolen the trademark for genie characters entirely, and it’s not hard to see why due to how well the animation correlates with his vocal and improvisational skills, which creates a sporadic character that livens up an already wacky environment, yet never feels out of place or disrupts the flow of the story. His lines are mostly pretty funny with only the occasional one feeling a little too on-the-nose, his frequent kidnapping of the fourth wall makes for some good bits, and he does prove to be one of the best characters of the movie even outside of the comedy, with his desire for freedom mixed with his genuine friendship with Aladdin making for some nice emotional beats as well.

Even though the film has a visual style that you wouldn’t normally associated with an Arabian Nights tale, it’s a very beautiful looking movie. Agrabah especially looks great with the architecture and contrasting colors that can just bleed atmospheric, creating a very iconic location that stands apart from other Disney-related lands that were made at the time. The colors especially look great in this movie, they just pop whenever they are predominantly featured and the use of lighting and even the framing of the shots leads to a lot of fantastic imagery. All the character designs are based on the work of American caricaturist, Al Hirschfeld who was best known for his black and white portraits of celebrities and Broadway stars. This leaves the characters with distinctly flowing facial expressions which allows the characters to be emotionally realistic when they need to be and over-the-top expressive when they need to be. Its crisp, flowing and incredibly energetic, but it can still be slow, emotional, and restrained in the appropriate moments. The songs are absolutely incredibly and were created by Alan Menken and his usual collaborator, lyricist Howard Ashman (who originally came up with the idea for the film). There two are responsible for Beauty and the Beast, The Little Mermaid, and Little Shop of Horrors, and much like their other work, its bouncy and energetic, every number is incredibly memorable and distinct from the other, they’re catchy as anything, they can be fast-paced and full of life like Prince Ali, or they can produce one of the greatest love duets of Disney history in A Whole New World, it’s an all-around success and is often credited as one of Disney’s best and most consistent soundtrack. The comedy for the movie is easily one of its strongest and most defining features, no other Disney movie has ever had comedy as its predominant element before and its handling in this film not only created a unique comedy identity for the film that both kids and adults could enjoy, but also shaped a new style and personality that most animated films would try and replicate in the future (with varying degrees of quality). Wanting to capture a similar feel to a campy 1930s-style musical, it explains the movie’s tone, style of humor, and importance of music. Sometimes the modern dialogue can be a bit too much in some regards like when Aladdin tries to act ‘cool’ or when Gilbert Gottfried shouts anything as the parrot, but its impressive that isn’t the majority.

Aladdin is a lot of fun to watch and despite containing a lot of components that could easily date it, features enough great aspects to still make one worth going back to all these years later. Unfortunately, it doesn’t hold up quite as strong as something like The Little Mermaid or Beauty and the Beast due to its modern atmosphere, slightly shallow characters, and pretty straightforward story, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t a lot to love about this movie. The characters are likeable, the songs are fantastic, the animation is really impressive and there’s a lot of great jokes throughout. Plenty of side stuff to get you invested even if the main focus isn’t anything special, Aladdin is a wish that is still definitely worth granting.