Aladdin

We’ve reached 1992 and I’m experiencing something peculiar. We’re about to sit down and watch another Disney classic and I’m feeling… is it optimism? I’m certainly not feeling a strong resistance or the overwhelming dread that I have become accustomed to throughout many of the previous twenty-nine films (this will be film number THIRTY! My, how time flies. Or in this case, drags like a painful death). The truth is that I’ve really enjoyed two of the last three films. Those films were ‘The Little Mermaid’, ‘Beauty and the Beast’ and ‘The Rescuers Down Under’ so guess which two I thoroughly enjoyed, and which was a ninety-minute slog of dull misery… Correct! So, it feels like we’ve reached a point where Disney has woken up and righted many of the wrongs that had even left some hardcore Disney fans alienated through the eighties, let alone cynical me. On top of that, they finally seem to have realised that a sense of fun is as important as drawing beautifully and stopped taking themselves quite so seriously. They have even started including humour beyond frolicking fauna. Don’t get me wrong, we still have clumsy escapades involving squirrels, birds and crustaceans but they are accompanied by actual jokes! Finally, they have included soundtracks that from both a musical and entertainment standpoint, have blown away all before.

Aladdin itself fills me with this optimism, mainly because it’s a Disney-Princess film. Ok, so it’s not just a Princess film per se, but it does prominently feature one, and just maybe, by having the male love-interest as the title character, for the first time in a Disney film there may actually be a Prince with a personality! Crazy. So, as I was saying, as much as I hate to admit it, I’m very much a Disney-Princess guy. On average I score a non-Disney-Princess film roughly four out of ten. On average I’ve scored the Princess-films around eight out of ten. That’s pretty conclusive. Is this a common opinion? I’d be interested to know other people’s views on this.

After a bit of backstory from a funny market-stall owner, we meet a bad dude named Jafar. Because this is Disney, Jafar has an animal friend, in this case a parrot named Iago. Jafar wants a treasure from a weird feline-cave-type-thing. Is it a Cave? Is it a Tiger? But that’s the beauty of Disney I guess, in that utterly batshit weird stuff can happen and we just don’t ask too many questions (What were the odds of Pinocchio meeting the world’s only fully dressed fox and cat couple? Don’t ask. Why did Maleficent dedicate sixteen years of her life seeking revenge for not getting a party invite? Shhhh. Why did fourteen-year-old Snow White sound like a strangled sixty-year-old on a trampoline when she sang? You get the picture….). Anyway, the cave is magical as well. It also transpires that this is a particularly discerning feline-cave who only thinks that one person in the whole universe who is the, so-called ”Diamond in the Rough”, and whose “worth lies far within”, and therefore is worthy of entering. Just a hunch, but my money is on Aladdin. Why is he the one-in-seven billion that is so special? Fuck knows. But sorry Gandhi, you are not worthy. Florence Nightingale, in the eyes of this cavity-cum-wildcat, you simply didn’t try hard enough. Aladdin is the chosen one.

Speaking of Aladdin, we are now introduced to him. He’s a “street rat”, which basically is a homeless man who is often involved in nefarious shit. A remarkably clean-cut street rat he is too. Seriously, there’s not a speck of dirt on him or his outfit, which begs the question, how? But after doing the usual cheeky street rat things (like sneaking out of the shadows, stealing bread, singing a song, etc), he shows what a good dude he is by giving it to some hungry orphan kids. What a guy. Because this is Disney, Aladdin has an animal friend, in this case a monkey named Abu. He’s a bit of a bellend.

Finally, we meet Jasmine, who is the princess daughter of The Sultan. By some fucked up law she has less than a week to be wed, but it has to be a to a prince. Unfortunately, all the princes don’t exactly tickle her pickle, so she is rejecting them all, much to her father’s despair. Because this is Disney, Jasmine has an animal friend, in this case a bloody-great tiger named Raja. Also, because this is Disney, Jasmine’s mother is long since deceased. Speaking of which, there’s a very nice line in which The Sultan comments on Jasmine’s constant rejections of potential suitors by claiming “Your Mother wasn’t nearly as fussy!”. Beautiful.

It turns out Jafar is the Sultans assistant. He has a penchant for hypnotising The Sultan with his enchanted snake staff. Fun fact: Offering to hypnotise someone with your enchanted snake staff is also a remarkably ineffective chat-up line. I expect. The power to hypnotise though, is a very powerful tool. So powerful, I wonder why the hell he doesn’t just use it all the time. For example, why doesn’t he just use the snake staff to manipulate Aladdin into the going into the feline-cave instead of the long-winded way he goes about things instead?

I’m not going to proceed into a blow-by-blow account of everything that happens in the film as if you have been cohabiting with me under the rather sizable Disney-free rock I don’t want to spoil every detail of a film, which I would absolutely recommend to all. Instead, I shall share a few musings that I noted during the film:

Firstly, how convenient that Jafar possesses a contraption that can tell him exactly who the ‘Diamond in the Rough’ is! Isn’t that just so fortunate?! I mean, what are the odds that he would be the person to possess such a device? It’s like when in Harry Potter, Harry, Ron and/or Hermione are always the students that happen to be in the right place at the right time to hear vital information from grown-ups that help them solve whatever is puzzling them. It’s the sort of statistically improbable luck that forces you to suspend considerable amounts of disbelief. Furthermore, the device works by turning a cog which turns another cog which turns… basically it ends up shooting lightning into a diamond which shows the relevant information in an hourglass. I think this is not supposed to be questioned any further.

A carpet that walks and is capable of independent thought. Ok then.

Iago calls Jafar “Almighty Evil One”. I feel like a rant about this every few films, but usually bad dudes don’t believe they’re evil. They usually have preconditioned ideals either regarding their own entitlement or their perceived view that a particular person or group of people are less entitled, that then justifies their behaviours. The ‘taking pleasures in being evil’ thing is a bit of a copout, and often is used as a lazy alternative to character depth. I just watched X-Men as research towards a new feature which will be reviewing the Disney Marvel films and was shook to see an antagonist with shades of grey and beliefs that in his mind, justify his actions. This surprise rather beautifully demonstrates what happens when you start living in a Disney-bubble…

Robin Williams is amazing. Robin Williams as the Genie is amazing. The genie is so Robin Williams, that I wouldn’t be surprised if they just said “Robin, just talk and be you, and we’ll draw the animation and write the whole script around whatever pours out of your head”. And let’s be honest, that would probably be the correct thing to do. I’m supposed to watch ‘The Lion King’ next but I think I’m going to have to detour and watch ‘Mrs Doubtfire’ first. And maybe an episode or two of ‘Mork and Mindy’. But not ‘Flubber’ though. ‘Flubber’ can fuck right off.

Along with the legend that is (was *sobs*) Robin Williams, two other things particularly impressed me. Firstly, in the continuation of ‘Operation Disney pulling its proverbial head out of its own backside’, the use of in jokes and nods to its own history is finally taken advantage of, with Easter Eggs littered throughout. I very much appreciate this, as not only does it offer additional chuckles for the observant viewer, it also goes someway to justifying sitting through TWENTY-NINE of their previous sodding full length animated features. Secondly, although I thought Jafar was a decent antagonist and the supporting cast were solid, both Aladdin and Jasmine were outstanding as a Hero and Princess respectively. Its impossible not to fully get behind Aladdin and even his occasionally dickhead-ish simian friend. Jasmine takes the ‘strong-independent-princess-who-don’t-need-no-prince’ traits that were being displayed by first Ariel, and then Belle and turns them up to ten. Not quite eleven, but I’m sure we’ll get there in the future. As great as the two leads were, the Genie is still my favourite character though, not just in Aladdin, but in any Disney film I’ve seen so far. My previous favourite was of course the hilarious and raucous Deems Taylor from Fantasia. No, in seriousness my previous favourite was Tramp, but an honourable mention given here to Baloo, and therefore, by default, Little John who was EXACTLY the same character except brown.

I genuinely loved this film and it’s definitely my favourite Disney animation so far. Not only that, but it means I’ve really enjoyed three of the last four films, which even a few months ago I would have thought unthinkable. The soundtrack was my favourite so far as I loved the Arabian melodies far more than the usual Western ‘Majorist-of-the-Major-Key’ cheese. The story was absorbing, and I never found my attention wavering. If you want to convince your cynical friend or loved-one about the greatness of Disney, I can think of many, MANY worse places to start than this!

9.5/10 – Ben 🙄

Ps. One final thing and this is a spoiler: At the end of the film, The Sultan realises that as he is the Sultan, he makes the laws, and casually mentions that therefore he probably could have changed the law about Princesses having to marry Princes ages ago and, in the process, could have saved a fuck load of hassle. WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK. What a twat!

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I feel Ben felt very strongly about the Sultan changing the law at the end, didn’t he.

Anyway, oh my god I am elated about how much he enjoyed Aladdin, as the film is unbelievably epic! Yeay! I can’t wait for him to see the live-action now!

Needless to say, I absolutely love this film and it is easily up there in my top five.

9.5/10

Kerry 😁

Beauty and the Beast

Ah yes, it’s the film in which Disney fans are seemingly overwhelmed with the need to either sing the title or at least follow it up by humming the same five note melody (for the musicians: G, G#, F, G, D#). I’m not sure if I’ve ever actually heard the phrase “Beauty and the Beast” spoken in monotone before. What I am sure of though, is that this film is supposed to be rather good. Some say it’s the best in the whole Disney library. As I’m only now sitting down to watch it for the first time, I’m not yet in a position to offer an opinion if it’s the best or not, but I can say with absolute certainty, even without seeing it, that it’s a lot better than the last film, ‘The Rescuers Down Under’.

The film begins in France and we learn that, once upon a time, there was a Prince who was massive prick. An enchantress decided to turn herself into an old beggar woman and offer him a gift of a rose in exchange for a night’s shelter from the cold, in order to see just how high he ranked on the douchebag scale. I’m not sure why the enchantress decided to do this, but one assumes that she either was an employee in the French Governments department for the regulation and re-education of complete bell-ends, or if the bell-end re-education sector had been privatised, she no doubt worked for a multinational corporation that specialises in door-to-door dickhead training. Fortunately, it appears that she can report back to the bosses at Nevertwat inc. headquarters, with news of a successful night’s work. The prince turns the hag away for being a bit of a minger. As a result, he earns himself the fixed penalty for such douchery, which is being turned into a giant ugly bear-cum-buffalo, which will be a life sentence unless he can love, and be loved, before his 21^st birthday. In a random and completely unnecessary additional punishment, all of his servants are also turned into various household items. That seems rather unfair to me. If the penalty for having a wanker for a boss, is being turned into a teapot, then crockery should now outnumber humans 50 to 1.  Anyway, I’m now going to make a prediction: The beast will find love. I’m confident of this because the film’s called ‘Beauty and the Beast’. They’ve sort of given the game away there. It’s like calling Cinderella “Cinderella and the Dull Prince She Ends Up Marrying”. Or Bambi “Bambi and his Soon-To-Be Dead Mom.”

This is one of those reviews where I don’t feel a need to go through the film chronologically. Usually I change it up when a film is so dull, I can’t bear to talk about it or because a film is so good, it’s hard to take the piss out of it. Happily, this falls into the latter category. It also allows me time to discuss the big question: What does a teapot have to have sexy time with, to end up with a litter of teacups? But before I go down that rabbit hole, I have to touch upon another issue that is apparently much discussed among Disney fans, which is how time passes (or doesn’t) for the Prince and his servants who are under the spell. Does time freeze so that the servants are the same age when they are turned into candles, etc… and that the children teacups were already existing when the spell was cast? But then if that were the case, how does the Prince age up to 21?  Ultimately, it fried my mind trying to understand the complexities and logic of it whilst the story unfolded (until I concluded it was just plain inconsistent), so I’m going to ignore the explanation the remake apparently included and use the fact that some form of aging must occur in order for the Prince to reach his 21^st birthday whilst under the spell, in order to justify the exploration of the curious world of crockery-fucking…. So, is it when two teapots love each very much, the male teapot tips his magic man-tea into the lady teapot? And then a few weeks / months later does the teapot squeeze the teacups out of her spout? And what does that make teabags? Rudimentary placentas? And how cute would the tiny new-born teacups be?! Completely useless, but cute. Or is the father the kettle? Would that be cross-breeding? The mind boggles at the possibilities.

Another thing: Was there not a point where having imprisoned a barely adult girl because she traded herself for her father, who merely wanted shelter after becoming lost in a terrible storm, that the Beast thought “hmmm, just maybe this has got ever so slightly out of hand?!”. Or perhaps it may have crossed his mind “what the fuck am I actually trying to achieve here?!”.

The point is that, regardless of time inconsistencies, randy kitchen utensils and tenuously punished daughters, as I said before, this film is very good. In the previous few reviews, I’ve discussed how Disney occasionally decides that the antagonist can’t be merely a dickhead that you want to be on the receiving end of a rich slice of justice. They have to be cruel enough to mistreat animals and children to make sure the viewer is reminded of the most harrowing aspects of real life.

The added issue of this is that unless you’ve been rather unfortunate, you are unlikely to have met too many puppy-skinners in day-to-day life, and even if you have, you probably would rather not be reminded about it during ninety minutes of escapism.  To that end, Gaston is breath of fresh air. He’s enough of a dick that it’s still satisfying to see him get his comeuppance (and a satisfying one it is too), but not so much so that he’s psychopathically cruel. Furthermore, as we’ve all encountered an arrogant, spoilt, musclebound, Alpha at some point in our lives, he’s more relatable than a witch or an octopus drag queen.

The thing that stands out most to me though, is the superb choreography during the musical numbers. There are so many different voices and the interplay between them, and the animation that accompanies them, is so clever. There’s a definite “wow” factor. Again, their style is not really my cup of tea, but they’re so well written, it’s hard not to enjoy them on at least some level. Actually, the quality of the musical numbers highlights how mediocre the musical side of Disney had become prior. Thinking about it, with a few exceptions (‘Bear Necessities’ springs to mind), there were barely any songs post-war that really impressed me, (at least until ‘The Little Mermaid’ came along) by the genius of their composition that Disney is often regarded for possessing.

The story is great, the conclusion is satisfying, and at no point did it feel like a chore to watch during its ninety-minute runtime. I can appreciate why it’s often at the top of Disney lists. Personally, I slightly preferred ‘The Little Mermaid’, but I would watch both again. And when you watch through Disney in chronological order, you fully appreciate that ‘The Rescuers Down Under’ sits between the two like the worlds most disappointing middle child. Next time out is ‘Aladdin’, so I’m cautiously optimistic that at least this time Disney won’t follow up with another ‘Rescuers Down Under’-style debacle.

9/10

Ben 🙄🙂

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It’s getting to the point where I’m finding that I have nothing else to add to Ben’s reviews. He’s not dissing my beloved Disney so much and actually enjoying some of my absolute favourite films of all time. However, at some point we’ll hit the films of the new millennium and he’ll probably change his tune again (although, I imagine, so will I).

Aladdin next! I wonder if he’ll change his opinion on ‘A Whole New World’ when he hears it in context to the rest of the film. Let’s hope so!

9.5/10

Kerry xxx 😁