Aladdin

Based on the 1992 Disney classic, Aladdin follows Mena Massoud’s title character as he discovers a magic lamp containing a genie (Will Smith) with the power to make all his dreams come true – with the narrative detailing Aladdin’s subsequent efforts at winning the affections of Princess Jasmine (Naomi Scott) while avoiding the evil advances of a power-hungry Grand Vizier (Marwan Kenzari’s Jafar). There’s ultimately never a point at which Aladdin is able to wholeheartedly justify its very existence, as filmmaker Guy Ritchie, working from a script written with John August, delivers an exceedingly (and often excessively) familiar production that inexplicably runs a full 38 minutes longer than its brisk predecessor – with the bloated runtime paving the way for a padded-out and sporadically tedious midsection (ie the whole thing, all too frequently, just drags). The get-on-with-it vibe ultimately can’t quite diminish the inherent charms of the story or the surprisingly effective roster of performances, with, in terms of the latter, Massoud and Scott’s strong work as Aladdin and Jasmine, respectively, certainly matched by a typically charismatic turn from Smith (and it’s clear, too, that Kenzari brings an impressively menacing edge to Jafar). And although the picture closes with an unexpectedly engaging final stretch, Aladdin‘s pervasively erratic atmosphere has long-since cemented its place as a somewhat needless (though relatively painless) live-action update.

**1/2 out of ****

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