What better way to kick this off than with a three part review of my favorite Disney franchise, Aladdin! This movie has been one of my favorites ever since I was a little kid, and now, I'd like to shed some light on why, so lets dive right in to Aladdin.
Plot:
Aladdin starts off with a merchant (played by Robin Williams) trying to sell many terrible items until finally pointing out a lamp that "once changed the course of a young mans life". This is where the real story starts off, at this point we are introduced to Jafar, the sorcerer to the sultan, and Iago, Jafar's parrot voiced by Gilbert Godfrey. He, along with some random thief, try to find the cave of wonders. Once finding it, Jafar orders the theif to enter. Alas, the thief is unable to enter and gets brutally killed by the giant lion head thing. Jafar is angry that he didn't find the right one to enter again, and almost on cue, we cut to Aladdin and his monkey Abu being chased for stealing bread, insert Les Miserable joke here. After finally escaping the clutches of the guards, we have one of my favorite scenes where Aladdin gives up his bread to some starving kids. We then cut to the palace where Jasmine is angry because she has to get married to a prince and all the princes she knows are, well, lets go with inadequate. Her father, only known as the sultan, has run out of suitors for Jasmine and knows she needs a husband by her next birthday, but instead of caring about the family line, she just wants to be like everyone else and have friends and be free of her terrible, terrible, life of privilege. She sneaks away and goes to the city where she accidentally gives an apple away to a kid without thinking that stealing is bad. Aladdin steps in to save her but Abu stupidly try's to steal more from the apple vendor. A chase scene ensues until they escape to Aladdin's "house" where they fall in love, but get found. Aladdin gets taken to jail, but meets and old man in the jail who takes him to the cave of wonders and Aladdin goes enters. Unlike before, Aladdin isn't instantly killed, but instead is able to go in, he is told to only take the lamp. Not thinking that's suspicious, he goes inside where he meets a magic carpet who takes them to the lamp. Abu decides to be stupid and grab a jewel causing the entire cave to collapse. They almost escape with carpet's help, but the old man turns out to have been Jafar all along, takes the lamp and pushes Al back in! Luckily Abu grabbed the lamp that turns out has a Genie inside! This is where the movie goes crazy. Genie (voiced again by Robin Williams) helps Al escape and makes him a prince so he can marry Jasmine. Jafar is very unhappy about this and decides to steal the lamp. The Genie, now under the control of Jafar, throws Aladdin to the Middle of the Desert (I think, that could be snow in that lighting). He of course gets back and saves Jasmine, defeats Jafar and gets married to Jasmine even though its illegal. Genie, again under Al's control is set free and goes on vacation.
Problems with film:
Ok, from some certain point in the '80s or '90s Disney decided to make every princess have the same wish. She wants more! Look, I don't have a problem, really it works here, but I just don't see why every movie needed it! Also, Genie has to make all of those pop culture jokes every ten seconds. It just seemed unneeded! As for everything else, this movie was great.
Afterthought:
Aladdin still is one of my favorites, even though it has some flaws. The animation is great, very vibrant colors and bouncy. The characters were all well written, except for maybe Jasmine at times. The voices fit perfectly, it was fantastic. And as for the music, just come back next time and well talk about that. Overall I'd give it 9.5/10
Thank you for reading! Come back for more next week!
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