Aladdin (Don't Worry, Not Last Year's Remake)

Aladdin (1992)

Runtime: 90 minutes

Directed by: Ron Clements/John Musker

Starring: The voices of Scott Weinger, Linda Larkin, Jonathan Freeman, Frank Welker, Robin Williams

From: Disney

This was viewed on Friday night but circumstances dictated that I talk about it today. This was only seen once before, and that was probably sometime in '93 on VHS; the only part of the movie that was retained in my memory: the over the top vocals & matching animation from Robin Williams. As an adult, he was even more over the top than I recalled and the movie was sillier than expected, yet it still works for what it is.

While a Disneyfied version of a story from the series of Arabian folktales known as One Thousand and One Nights. It's a traditional tale where a “street rat” and a princess fall in love, only to deal with an evil royal vizier named Jafar. Nice life lessons are taught to the kids, such as “be true to yourself instead of lying to impress someone.” Both the hero and the villain have a comedy pet sidekick.

Big assets are the lovely animation-aside from the appearance of the Sultan; as others have noted, his skin color is not the same throughout-great music and songs that people still remember today, and a story that does not become too silly or overbearing. It takes awhile for the Genie to show up and that's for the best as you don't want too much of such a wild character. Even Gilbert Gottfried as Jafar's parrot buddy was not an aggravation in the worst ways. It was a fun story with nice action beats and a wild finale.

All the same, it was Williams and his manic performance which was the highlight; on the 21st of this month many people talked about him as that would have been his 69th birthday and many do miss him... including me. I even remember being real little and seeing reruns of Mork & Mindy on TV. Of course, his success here gave us the trend of big celebrities voicing cartoons whether they are right for the role or not-heck, even those Walmart bargain bin specials of cheap CG animation-which usually rip off something that just came out theatrically-from Korea or Russia or China that sometimes have surprisingly big names lending their voices.

Also, I am glad this wasn't problematic; at the time they had to change a line in the opening song as people got mad over the stereotype of “violent Arabs” cutting someone's ear off. That was for the best as if they hadn't... some would be real angry about it in 2020. Overall, thank heavens this was not a gigantic hit from the early 90's that has not aged poorly. As I've seen comparisons, one day I'll get to The Thief and the Cobbler; of course that would be The Recobbled Cut easily found on YouTube. As I would have to also see one of the officially released versions for comparison's sake and a LOT can be written over its 29 year production, I would need an entire evening free to tackle that. No matter what my opinion is once that time arrives, it will be a better use of my time than a pointless live-action remake which will never be watched by me.