Coming hot on the heels of Disney live action reboots of classics like “Cinderella,” “Beauty and The Beast” and “The Jungle Book” comes “Aladdin,” Guy Ritchie’s reimagining of the all singing, all dancing, all powerful Genie made famous by the late, great Robin Williams.
The story begins when “street rat” and thief Aladdin (Mena Massoud) helps a beautiful woman (Naomi Scott) he believes is a handmaiden to the daughter of the Sultan of Agrabah (Navid Negahban), escape from the police after a misunderstanding in the market. After a wild chase—part musical theatre, part parkour—they spark, bonding over the vagaries of their own circumstances. She’s trapped by palace life, he by a life of poverty. “It’s kind of sad having a monkey as the only parental authority in my life,” he says of Abu, his kleptomaniac pet monkey and constant companion.
She is, of course not the handmaiden, but the Princess Jasmine, a woman who longs to take over for her father but is stymied in her ambition by tradition. The law says she cannot take the throne and must marry a prince. When one royal suitor compliments her on her beauty she says, “We have the same titles but are never described the same way,” before dismissing him.
Meanwhile back at the palace, the Sultan’s power-hungry advisor Jafar (Marwan Kenzari) also has his eye on the throne. Using hypnotism he controls the ruler, but wants more. More, in the form of a magic lamp hidden deep in the Cave of Wonders. “Once that lamp sits in my hand I will sit on the throne,” he cackles. Trouble is, everyone who ventures into the cave dies. Jafar needs someone with serious skills to get in, grab the lamp and get out. When he meets Aladdin, he uses his access to the princess to strike a deal. “Retrieve the lamp from the cave and I will make you rich enough to impress a princess.”
The perilous journey to the lamp reveals the star of the show, a magical blue Genie with the power to grant three wishes to the keeper of the lamp. There are some catches though; he can’t make anyone fall in love with him or raise the dead. He also cautions against wishing for wealth and power the very two things Jafar and Aladdin covet.
Despite all its pomp and circumstance the live action remake of the beloved animated “Aladdin” does not exactly transport us to a whole new world. Ritchie fills the screen with colour and pageantry, staging large scale Bollywood-style dance numbers and, in the case of the Genie’s signature tune “Friend Like Me,” a maximalist CGI orgy that gives Flo Ziegfeld a run for his money. Even when he is more restrained, he isn’t that restrained. The rendering of Princess Jasmine’s big solo “Speechless,” one of the new songs by the “Dear Evan Hansen” composers Benj Pasek and Justin Paul, plays like a Bonnie Tyler power pop video from the 1980s.
Style has never been Ritchie’s problem. His camera is always in motion, caressing the screen with acrobatic shots and tricky editing. His movies make your eyeballs dance but often at the expense of the characters who get lost in the theatricality of the presentation.
He’s in fine form in “Aladdin” although overcooked CGI overwhelms the finale in a rush of animated imagery. The characters work hard to sparkle but get lost amid the ruckus and with them gores much of the film’s heart. The ending is loud and large but fails to make an emotional impression. Sometimes less is more.
As Princess Jasmine, Scott has more to do than in the original and does so in much more modest clothing. No animated bellybuttons here. Massoud gives the social climbing Aladdin a certain impish charm in an energetic performance. More baffling is Kenzari as the monotone villain Jafar. All scowls and surly attitude, he’s the least interesting villain on Ritchie’s resume.
The screen is filled with people but, let’s face it, the character everyone is most interested in is the big blue Genie. He’s the star of the show but in many ways it’s the film’s most thankless role. Robin Williams made the Genie his own in a performance that still sparkles with life more than twenty-five years later. Smith battles against some unfortunate CGI and the memory of Williams to make the character his own. He’s part match-maker, part magic-maker and part mirth-maker. Fortunately for Ritchie Smith’s charisma elevates the performance from merely mimicking his predecessor.
“Aladdin” is not so much a remake but an up-dating for a new generation. Some of the revisions are welcome. Jasmine is a now fully rounded character and some unfortunate lyrics, like “It’s barbaric but hey, it’s home,” have been removed. Other changes don’t work as well. Can someone explain why Iago (voiced by Alan Tudyk), a comedic highlight from the 1992 film, has been reduced to a few squawks and repeated phrases?
Despite the updates and the pomp “Aladdin” feels underwhelming by the time the end credits roll. The songs frequently interrupt the flow of the story, creating a stop-and-go feel that sucks some of the film’s momentum away.
Richard sits in on the CJAD Montreal morning show with host Andrew Carter to talk the new movies coming to theatres including the all-singing, all-dancing, all-powerful Genie in the live action remake of “Aladdin,” the wild and wooly “Booksmart” and a doc about the life and times of a Canadian legend, “Gordon Lightfoot: If You Could Read My Mind.”
Guy Ritchie’s films have entertained me for years but I’m afraid he didn’t find me very interesting.
The incident happened during my press day with Ritchie and Charlie Hunnam, the director and star of King Arthur: Legend of the Sword. I first spoke with them for television. Hunnam answered my opening question about the film Excalibur, a precursor to their movie, enthusiastically. But I could feel Ritchie disengage. He sat back and went into autopilot, answering my questions by rote. The rest of the interview flew by in a flurry of quips and tossed off answers… READ THE WHOLE THING HERE!
Welcome to the House of Crouse. It’s a special time around here as we celebrate 100 weeks of good conversation. This week we sip some bubbly and have a look at the yin and yang of movie promotion. The yin is Guy Ritchie, the yang is Charlie Hunnam. Click on the link for the whole story. Then we go long with photographer Chris Buck. His 30 year retrospective Uneasy is on bookshelves right now and he’s a fascinating interview with great stories about taking photos of everyone from Donald Trump to Ice T. It’s good stuff. C’mon in and sit a spell.
A new(ish) feature from from ctvnews.ca! The Crouse Review is a quick, hot take on the weekend’s biggest movies! This week Richard looks at “Snatched” with Amy Schumer and Goldie Hawn, “King Arthur: Legend of the Sword”and the sniper flick “The Wall.”
Richard and CP24 anchor Jamie Gutfreund have a look at the weekend’s new movies, “Snatched” with Amy Schumer and Goldie Hawn, “Bon Cop, Bad Cop 2” with Patrick Huard and Colm Feore, “King Arthur: Legend of the Sword”and the sniper flick “The Wall.”
Richard sits in with CTV NewsChannel anchor Marcia MacMillan to have a look at the big weekend movies, “Snatched” with Amy Schumer and Goldie Hawn, “Bon Cop, Bad Cop 2” with Patrick Huard and Colm Feore, “King Arthur: Legend of the Sword”and the sniper flick “The Wall.”
Guy Ritchie’s films have entertained me for years but I’m afraid he didn’t find me very interesting.
The incident happened during my press day with Ritchie and Charlie Hunnam, the director and star of King Arthur: Legend of the Sword. I first spoke with them for television. Hunnam answered my opening question about the film Excalibur, a precursor to their movie, enthusiastically. But I could feel Ritchie disengage. He sat back and went into autopilot, answering my questions by rote. The rest of the interview flew by in a flurry of quips and tossed off answers.
Half-an-hour later I sat with them again to do a longer interview for print.
“I’m glad we can make amends,” said Hunnam as I came in the room. “It seemed like you wanted to have a proper conversation and we were having a bit of a jolly up.”
The whole experience was an example of the yin and yang of movie promotion. The yin was Ritchie, an intense man who refers to the walking a red carpet as “a dog and pony show” before adding that’s not what he’s here for.
The yang is Hunnam, an engaging actor who said, “We don’t make these things to live on in obscurity, we make them with the hope that people will see them and this is one of the ways we can help manifest that.”
The duo have been all over the world talking to media people with perfectly coiffed hair and big smiles, answering the same questions on repeat. By the time I get them there’s nothing new to ask about their update of the Arthurian legend. But there is an unspoken contract between my interview subjects and me.
Whether it’s for television or for the paper you hold in your hands, the deal is the same. They say something interesting and I report it. They get publicity and I get a story that my audience will hopefully enjoy.
As Ritchie sat with his arms folded across his chest, I thought about our “contract” and the difference between the two men.
Despite his tabloid appeal — for a time the British press made a sport of reporting on him — Ritchie strikes me as a private person. He’s more interested in what he’ll be working on next than the film he spent years making and has now signed off on. Or perhaps it’s that, as a director, he’s used to being in control and in these situations he has to cede power to the interviewer.
“We both know why we’re doing it,” Ritchie says, “but the red carpet last night, I’ll tell you, I felt soulless after that. After ten minutes get me off there because it takes me hours to recover.”
Hunnam, the performer, is immediately warm and open. When Ritchie talks about losing patience on press days Hunnam jokes, “Guy Ritchie leaves the room and Johnny Nasty shows up.”
Luckily, Johnny Nasty never showed. By the end of our time together the ice broke, Ritchie’s arms unfolded and he smiled. I’m not sure what happened other than he seemed to warm up to me when we talked generally about film and not specifically about King Arthur.
We traded stories, discussed King Arthur, an actor’s connection to their director and not being imprisoned by fear. Maybe it was just me but for a moment it felt like we were talking over a beer in a bar and not fulfilling our respective contractual duties. It was, in his words, a little less of a dog and pony show.
“I feel more satisfied now,’ said Hunnam as I left and another press person walked into the room to repeat the process. “I really felt bad after the [television] interview [with you]. I thought, ‘Man, that’s a serious cat and we really just f–ed around for four minutes.’ I’m glad we got into some of the nitty-gritty.”
Terry Gilliam once told me a story about the making of his medieval epic “Monty Python and the Holy Grail.” He wanted Arthur, King of the Britons and his men to ride to the crest of a hill on horseback but couldn’t afford enough horses for everyone. Instead he put them on broomsticks with the clomp-clomp of the horses provided by trusty servant Patsy.
“You’ve got two empty halves of coconut and you’re bangin’ ’em together,” says a guard.
It is now the scene everyone remembers from the film but, Gilliam says, if he had the money he wouldn’t have had to use his imagination. Arthur would have been on horseback, no laughs, no memories.
I thought of this while watching “King Arthur: Legend of the Sword,” a big budget retelling of the Camelot myth written and directed by Guy Ritchie. It’s a huge, no-expense-spared film with without an ounce of these vim and vigour that once made Guy Ritchie’s movies like “Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels” and “Snatch” so much fun.
The story begins with a coup. King Uther Pendragon (Eric Bana), overthrown by his power mad brother Vortigern (Jude Law), is killed, his son Arthur a witness to the murder. The youngster escapes, shuttled off to the safety outside the castle. Raised in a brothel and unaware of his place as the “born King” Arthur grows up on Londinium’s scrappy streets as a pimp and practitioner of the ancient art of UFC battling.
Obsessed in finding and eliminating Arthur, Vortigern subjects every young male in the country to the Excalibur test. Only the “born King” can pull Pendragon’s magical sword Excalibur from the stone it is embedded in, and Vortigern wants to find him.
When it is Arthur’s turn to pull the sword no one is more surprised than he when Excalibur slides out of the stone like greased lightening. He is arrested and will soon be executed, thus cementing Vortigern’s power.
Escaping execution Arthur—with the help of his loyal followers and the anti- Vortigern Resistance—learns to harness the power of the sword and perhaps get revenge on his uncle.
I can only imagine the guy who made “Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels” would look at the excesses of “King Arthur: Legend of the Sword” with wonderment. All the Ritchie trademarks are present and accounted for. There’s the cool English accents, stylish (for the time) clothing, interesting use of music, tricky slow-motion editing plus loads of violence but there’s also a giant kingdom crushing elephant. And that’s just the first five minutes. It is jam-packed but it’s not that interesting. It’s like Gilliam but with money. Instead of innovation we’re treated to a series of expensive set pieces that fill the screen but not our imaginations.
Ritchie takes some liberties with the story, but by-and-large that’s OK. People have been telling and re-telling the Arthurian legend for years. It could use a freshening up but like the “Sherlock Holmes” movies “King Arthur” is more a showcase for Ritchie’s stylistic flourishes then his storytelling ability.
“King Arthur: Legend of the Sword” isn’t your father’s “Camelot.” It’s a Guy Ritchie’s “Camelot,” a male fantasy—if it weren’t for prostitutes and witchy women there’d be no women here at all—with plenty of bluster but not enough Gilliam.
Coming hot on the heels of Disney live action reboots of classics like “Cinderella,” “Beauty and The Beast” and “The Jungle Book” comes “Aladdin,” Guy Ritchie’s reimagining of the all singing, all dancing, all powerful Genie made famous by the late, great Robin Williams.
