Does anyone out there remember what they were doing in 1992? I was only a year out of high school. I was working in day care, choreographing Jesus Christ Superstar and busy pretending I was going to dance on Broadway. Robin Williams was only 42 years old…which is, incidentally, younger than I am now! Aladdin was only the third Disney animated movie to come out during what we all now consider the NEW AGE of Disney 2D animation…that era of blissfully amazing years when Michael Eisner took over, for better or worse, (pre-Pixar), and we got this solid block of award worthy pictures that erased the memory of The Black Cauldron and The Great Mouse Detective from our minds almost completely. Aladdin won best score a year after Beauty and the Beast pulled off the same trick. Then it went ahead and won best song for “A Whole New World” right along side its predecessor. “Friend Like Me” was nominated as well!

Reviewers for Aladdin didn’t adore it as much as they gushed over Beauty and the Beast but they were inescapably in love with Robin Williams’ performance, announcing him blessed to finally have found a vehicle where he could put his own unique brand of humor to use.

Williams, the voice as well as the inspiration for the Genie that comes out of a very old lamp with some very big surprises, has more than a decade’s worth of film acting experience and two Academy Award nominations to his credit. But he’s never had a role that so showcased his genius, for that’s what it is, for dizzying improvisational humor, and animation has never had a human partner who so pushed it to its comic limits. Watching this meeting of sensibility and technology is the purest kind of joy, impossible to either describe or forget, simply to be enjoyed

Likely there isn’t anyone out there in my age group who cannot at least deliver ONE quote from this film. I can easily give you a dozen right now. Most from the Genie himself of course, but Iago will get a handful as well. I cannot think of a more quotable Disney film, or a more singable one. I know that the Lion King which came two years later, dwarfed it in every way. Its story, animation and music even, blew Aladdin out of the water. And yes, I can even quote a few dozen Lines from The Lion King as well, but Aladdin was really fun and over the top in so many ways. The Lion King brought us all back to earth didn’t it? It was heavy. It hurt. It destroyed childhoods in a way movies hadn’t since The Neverending Story. Beauty and the Beast was ground breaking. The Lion King was heartbreaking.

Aladdin was just plain old eye popping, jaw-dropping, breathtaking magic.

When I saw the first teaser trailer for the live action Aladdin I just about lost my Walt Disney loving mind. I mean I already knew about The Lion King and I was feeling all sorts of sappy nostalgia for Dumbo, but when that sandy CGI tiger head growled out of the desert and those “Friend Like Me” trumpets slowly dragged out that Alan Menken/ Howard Ashman melody and that golden title stretched across the theater screen, I literally melted out of my chair.

And then… Dumbo came out to disappointing reviews and even my nearly un-ending Disney optimism couldn’t really save it. Because sweet as it was, it wasn’t great, and a few Aladdin trailers later and one or two glimpses of a blue Will Smith, and my high hopes of a live action Aladdin were sinking fast. Quicker than a Robin Williams riff, I was finding myself already looking forward to the release of The Lion King. After the spectacular Jungle Book and with King Mufasa (Mr. Earl Jones himself) I know they cannot possible go wrong with Pride Rock.

BUT…today I took the littlest of nieces, (incidentally the naughtiest though she is unaware of this title. Also the funniest, and possibly my last and only hope of following in my acting footsteps. Though she has the patience and focus of Dug the dog from Up! Squirrel anyone?) Miss K, we call her, despite about nine and a half bathroom trips, one popcorn spill and a lot of jumping on and down off of my lap, was able to watch most of the movie with me. And low and behold, Aladdin beat my expectations, and in one or two places, even improved upon the original.

Before you take that last comment to heart, let us just take a moment to remember the late great Robin Williams who pretty much created the genie of this story.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LMhZWXZ8hY4

The animator who created the Genie, Eric Goldberg, literally based his character on Robin Williams in the hope that Williams would agree to play the part. Thank Mickey Mouse that he did! But of course that meant that we didn’t necessarily get what the writers wrote, we got what Robin said. Will isn’t a stand up comic, he is a comedic actor and he did hid level best to make the Genie his own. He was adorable and charming and I was totally along for the ride. Actually the less blue he was, the more I bought into it. The man just turned 50 and he doesn’t look a day over 30. He is as effusive and darling as ever. As much as I miss Robin Williams, I cannot credit Will enough for solidly pulling this performance off.

So! Having dealt with the elephant in the room, my biggest fear was more or less over. The rest of the movie is decent. Even highly recommendable! Jasmine gets a Me-too movement upgrade, Genie gets a little love story of his own with a hilarious handmaid/sidekick to the princess, Jasmine gets her own song even if it doesn’t quite match the others, but hey what can you do without Howard Ashman? The Bollywood level choreo was stellar! I thought Jafar was a little too serious here and there, I much prefer Jonathon Freeman. https://youtu.be/AYk-9JjLWJo But I did love that he was once a thief himself, able to match Aladdin pound for pound in that department. He was darker and scarier and the actor was wonderful.

But Guy Ritchie just isn’t one of my favorite directors and he doesn’t do his actors any favors in this film. I’ve never been interested in his Lock, Stock and Barrels movie or whatever they’re called. The Sherlock Holmes franchise was catchy, or maybe I just adore the actors and they made the movies watchable. Ritchie is flashy and over the top in the same obnoxious way Bruckenheimer is and that’s not a good thing. There are CGI moments in this film that are a waste of money and others that are downright painful. The less time Will Smith spent being blue the better we all were for it. And honestly the flying carpet was good but it wasn’t great. “A Whole New World” should have been mind blowing and it wasn’t. I wanted to float and sort of quietly sob and shed one tiny tear for the spectacle of the sheer brilliance CGI animation that I was certain it would be!!

But it wasn’t. It wasn’t good enough. And for that we have no one to blame but the director himself. However, what makes a Disney movie for me, animated or otherwise, is my interest in seeing the film again. Sometimes almost immediately. And exactly one week later I was in the same theatre again, this time with the other two nieces – Zebra and Evil-icious, and for a good chunk of the movie I just watched their gorgeous little faces. They laughed and they smiled. They beamed with happiness when the Genie appeared, they were scared of Jafar and the desert tiger in the sand. The were excited to see Iago and Abu, they about fell out of their seats with laughter when the genie made Aladdin dance with Jasmine. Their eyes sparkled with every costume change princess Jasmine had and their little chins raised just a little higher when they realized it was SHE who would get to be Sultan in the end.

And for that moment alone, the movie deserves praise.