ALADDIN- A MAGICAL TREAT

Image Source - IMDb

The year was 1996. We had been invited over to our neighbour’s house for dinner.  Raucous kids were getting in the way of adult’s (boring) chatter and our game of indoor hide and seek came to a halt with us being shooed into a bedroom and being asked to quietly watch a cartoon film. It was Aladdin. It was the first animated movie I’d ever watched and I remember being completely mesmerised by it. Soon, it was time to leave and the movie hadn’t finished. The next day, I asked my mother to borrow the cassette from Madhu Aunty and I watched the movie twice before we returned the cassette. That year, I secretly hoped for an Aladdin cassette to be magically dropped off at our doorstep.

I watched the movie next, two weeks ago when I had recorded it for Skip. A hilarious genie, a flying carpet, a tiger and a monkey for a pet and a whole lot of magic – What’s not to love in the movie and though I’m not one much for musicals, I loved the songs in Aladdin. However, surprisingly, when I saw the trailers for the live action movie, I didn’t feel like watching the movie until I began receiving messages about how good the movie was and that I should take Skip for it. After postponing the plan by two weeks, I finally got about to watching the movie.

I LOVED IT! LOVED IT, LOVED IT.

I am going to skip the plot, we all know the story of Aladdin and the magic lamp and the three wishes.

Here’s why I loved the movie:

1.  The film is directed by Guy Ritchie (Sherlock Holmes, The Man from U.N.C.L.E, Snatch, Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels). I enjoy his films and was curious to watch a musical fantasy directed by him. Correct me if I’m wrong but I think this is the first in this genre of films that he has directed. Though I did read that film critics haven’t appreciated his direction.

2.    I wasn’t too enthusiastic about watching Will Smith play the role of Genie. In fact, when he made his first appearance on screen, I almost shouted “we miss you Robin Williams” but Skip was already squirming as I was singing the songs out aloud and I didn’t want to embarrass him further. What a brilliant portrayal of Genie by Will Smith! He has brought his hip-hop swag to the role and is hilarious. I almost felt disloyal to Williams as I had a big grin on each time Smith appeared on screen.

3.    Disney has cast culturally appropriate actors. (Well, almost...) Mena Massoud plays the role of Aladdin and while Naomi Scott (Jasmine) is not Middle Eastern (She’s British Indian. Woo Hoo Indian !), atleast they didn’t whitewash the film . (Remember Scarlett Johansson portrayed a Japanese girl in Ghost in the Shell). When Massoud is turned into a Prince by Genie and he makes his grand entrance to the song, Prince Ali, he looks exactly like the animated version of Aladdin. The film also does away with religious stereotypes that were portrayed in the earlier film.

4.   The actors are a treat to watch. While Smith, Massoud and Scott have been receiving accolades for their acting, I must also mention Marwan Kenzari (who plays Jafar ) and Nasim Pedrad ( who plays Dalia, a handmaiden to Princess Jasmine).

5.  The set is grand, larger than life and colourful. The costumes are appealing. Some scenes reminded me of Sanjay Leela Bansali’s grandiose setting especially the ones that involved dancing.

6.      Princess Jasmine is a sassy rebel; she’s outspoken and doesn’t need a knight in shining armour to rescue her. In short, she’s not your typical Disney princess. Feminists, rejoice.

7.   Take a deep breath, Disney purists; there are some differences between the animated and the live action film. A new character has been introduced in Dalia, handmaiden to Princess Jasmine, Genie has a love interest and Jasmine gets to become the Sultan.

8.    The film sends important messages to children about honesty, being true to oneself, the power of friendship etc.

Aladdin is the 4^th highest grossing film of 2019 and has passed the original at the Box Office.  Go watch it! It’s a ‘feel-good’ movie. It has magic, music, dance, romance, drama, action. It’s a Bollywood film with great CGI effects.

BLAH PANTHER

Image Courtesy- IMDb

Archie (WhatsApp friend ;)) is very serious about films. Besides Bob, she is my other source of information on the latest movie releases. My movie plans revolve around Archie’s seasoned critique. She is the ‘recommender of movies’, ‘maker of plans’ and ‘booker of tickets’ (sometimes gets the theatre wrong but you can’t hold that against the Maker) and despite all this, I went ahead and watched the Black Panther even when Archie said that the movie was just average. Could she be wrong? The movie has been setting milestones and is apparently the highest grossing superhero movie.

Though I like the DC comic superheroes better, I prefer watching the Marvel movies. So when Shugz and Hershey asked me if I wanted to watch the movie, I tagged along.

30 minutes into the movie, I looked at Hershey who looked super engrossed. I waited for 5 more minutes and then hesitatingly asked her if she could understand what was happening. “Not a clue (or should I say Klaue :D)”she said.

(NO SPOILERS) Here is the storyline of the movie (I shall refrain from calling it the Plot because the movie lacks one!): The film begins with the ‘birth’ (figuratively) of the Black Panther and the coming together of the Jabari Tribe to form ‘Wakanda’- a nation that portrays itself as a Third World Country to the world, that irrationally refuses foreign aid but is in fact years ahead of its counterparts in technology and refrains from aiding other countries despite having the capacity to do so.

The source of this technological advancement is Vibranium, a metal available exclusively in Wakanda, that is used in almost everything – fidget spinner like flying saucer, kinetic energy absorbing ‘panthersuit’, running trains to healing broken vertebrae and turning otherwise gentle rhinos to beasts of war.

The vibranium falls into the wrong hands, an illegal arms-dealer, Ulysses Klaue (Andy Serkis) and  King T’Chaka’s brother (Sterling Brown) is accused of having helped him steal it.  

Post T’Chaka’s death, his son T’Challa (Chadwick Boseman) inherits the throne. He is accompanied by his side-kicks, Okoye (Danai Gurira), the leader of his army of bodyguards and his ex-lover, Nakia (Lupita Nyong’o).

Klaue steals a Wakandan artefact made of Vibranium from a museum with help from Erik Stevens (Michael Jordan) and plans on selling it to a CIA operative, Everett Ross (Martin Freeman). T’Challa along with Okoye and Nakia head to South Korea to extract the Vibranium before it’s sold and also bring back Klaue to Wakanda for justice. The plan goes awry with Klaue escaping, only to be killed later by Erik Stevens.

Erik goes to Wakanda with Klaue’s corpse and gains the support of a tribe there and defeats T’Challa in the ritualistic fight for the throne. Skipping the why’s and the how’s as that would reveal the “plot” (for lack of a better word), the story follows with attempts made to restore the rightful heir to the throne.

Here is why I was disappointed with the movie:

1.      Did you see Forest Whitaker mentioned in the storyline above? Well, guess what, he’s there in the movie. The movie has an ensemble of brilliant actors but unfortunately they either lack sufficient screen time (Brown and Whitaker) or they aren’t ideally suited for the characters being portrayed by them (Freeman and Nyong’o).

2.      Many may disagree but Boseman hasn’t done complete justice to the role of Black Panther. The character just seems so ‘ordinary’, there are no quirks that set him apart.

3.      The movie is a hotchpotch of plots. The story seems to have been written along the way, in an attempt to include all that is required to make a Blockbuster Superhero film and then some more.

4.      While the actor (Jordan) portraying the role of the villain has made a good attempt, the character of the villain itself is not well-etched. All superhero movies need a Super Villain and Eric Stevens is not intimidating enough.

5.      The dialogues lack in creative ingenuity.

The only time the audience hooted was when Stan Lee made his cameo appearance.

Thankfully I hear it’s a non-sequel movie. It goes to show that the makers of the film too didn’t have much confidence in it.