Aladdin (2019)

The Low-Down: For the past decade, Disney has been mining its treasure trove of animated classics for live-action remake fodder. Thus far, the results have been charming enough, though none of them has made a definitive case for or against telling the same story in a different medium. Aladdin has the rather dubious distinction of tilting the debate in favour of leaving well enough alone. Notwithstanding a few welcome sparks of colour and reinvention, this remake will struggle to convince anyone that it needed to exist. In fact, it provides concrete proof that – however good, however photo-real modern special effects have become – there are some things that just work better when animated.

The Story: You know the drill – Aladdin (Mena Massoud) is a street rat with a heart of gold, picking pockets to stay alive in the bustling markets of Agrabah. He’s recruited by Jafar (Marwan Kenzari) – nefarious, ambitious vizier to the Sultan (Navid Negahban) – to steal a magic lamp from the Cave of Wonders. Aladdin’s life takes a turn for the weird and wonderful when he rubs said lamp, freeing an all-powerful Genie (Will Smith) who grants him three wishes. With the Genie’s help, Aladdin makes his bid for the heart of Princess Jasmine (Naomi Scott). But romance falls by the wayside when Jafar sets his evil plans into motion.

The Good: There are some welcome efforts to update elements of Aladdin’s story to better reflect the world in which we live today. In the 1992 original, it was always frustrating that a princess with the intelligence and independent spirit of Jasmine had to find a husband to rule Agrabah. This remake doesn’t derail the romance, but it does make time to return Jasmine her agency – making clear that she’s the one in the relationship with all the (political) power. It’s a shame that Speechless, the new song she’s been given to explore her inner turmoil, feels so out-of-place in both the film and the score. The tune is disposable, presumably fished out of composer Alan Menken’s bottom drawer, with pop anthem lyrics by Benj Pasek and Justin Paul that are frustratingly generic. But hey – effort appreciated.

The Not-So-Good: Unfortunately, the rest of Aladdin never quite lives up to the spectacular  heights of the original film. It’s decently made, for the most part, and the action sequences are gratifying to watch. In live action, Aladdin is something of a parkour practitioner, the camera chasing after him on his gravity-defying sprints through the streets of Agrabah. But the magic is curiously gone, bled out of scenes that should crackle with joy and emotion, like Prince Ali and A Whole New World. Apart from a couple of goofy moments that feel charmingly improvised, you won’t be able to spot director Guy Ritchie’s chaotic comic streak in the film at all. Almost all of its best bits – specifically the friendship between Aladdin and the Genie – are lifted, beat for beat, from its predecessor.

I (Don’t Want To) Dream Of Genie: Robin Williams’ Genie is one of Disney’s towering achievements – his every motion, facial expression and quicksilver transformation like lighting captured in a bottle, literally and figuratively. It’s truly one of the most sublime marriages of actor and animation ever: Robin Williams is the Genie, and the Genie is Robin Williams. It’s actually unfair to expect anyone to fill Williams’ enormous shoes, even someone like Smith, who has bucketloads of natural charisma of his own. Here, he’s not only hamstrung by having to give a performance already perfected by someone else – he’s saddled with unfortunate character design (that gigantic, puffed-up torso) and occasionally ropey CGI. As a result, Smith’s Genie becomes the stuff of nightmares. It should come as no surprise that Smith is most effective in the scenes when he isn’t big and blue. The opposite can be said of Jafar, who was made all the more sinister by his distinctively arch appearance in the animated film – something Kenzari can’t possibly hope to approximate as a real human person. At least the film’s animal companions (Abu, Rajah and Iago) are wonderfully rendered, which gives one hope for Disney’s next live-action remake, The Lion King.

Recommended? Not particularly. Aladdin tries, quite hard, but doesn’t make a convincing argument for its own existence – and occasionally threatens to ruin your childhood.

After Earth (2013)

After Earth is hitting cinemas here trailing a slew of terrible reviews in its wake. At time of publication, the film boasts a miserable 12% fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes. Is it as bad as critical consensus would have it? Actually, no – it isn’t. Is it as good as it could be? Well, not really. But being mediocre isn’t going to work for a film like this one (so unapologetically a pet project for its two stars), which practically invites critics to sharpen their knives and rip it apart. That’s pretty much what happens with the bland, workaday After Earth – it’s not completely horrible, but there isn’t much about it that can salvage it from the critical scrap heap.

The concept of After Earth – dreamt up by star/producer/celebrity dad Will Smith – is simple. One thousand years in the future, mankind has evacuated its home planet, which has become completely uninhabitable for human beings. One day, however, a space-faring ship containing driven teenager Kitai (Jaden Smith) and his near-mythic over-achiever of a father Cypher (Will Smith) is forced to crash-land on Earth. With Cypher critically injured and an alien monster on the loose, Kitai must make his way across unfriendly terrain to find a way to save them both.

For the most part, After Earth hits all its marks in a completely dutiful fashion: the troubled father-son relationship is established; heartbreaking backstory is layered into Kitai’s determination to prove himself to his dad; the alien monster hunts what few survivors made it through the crash; the situation becomes ever more dire when his portable oxygen supply starts running out… and so on and so forth. There’s nothing about the film that surprises or stands out, and nothing about it that’s unspeakably bad either.

In fact, Will Smith does a pretty good job of playing a warped, sci-fi version of the wheelchair-bound anti-hero of Rear Window – the difference being that he switches between being passive and aggressive, as he panics when the communication link breaks down or hides information that could fatally demoralise his son. In a moment of gentle irony, Jaden Smith, who plays a boy wanting to prove himself to be his father, struggles here to match even his younger self – again, he isn’t bad, just bland, missing some of the spark that made him such a precocious and adorable presence in his earlier screen outings.

Perhaps most curious of all is the almost complete absence of Shyamalan’s directorial imprint. Love them or hate them, Shymalan’s films are usually unmistakably his own, packed with final revelatory twists that have been exponentially losing their cool factor. After Earth feels completely generic, like it could have been made by just about anybody with some rudimentary experience in calling the shots on a film set. Shyamalan squeezes a couple of nice moments out of the mix – including Kitai’s unexpectedly tender confrontation with a giant bird – but it’s hard to shake the feeling that, with huge cheque in hand, he’s merely executing a by-the-numbers blueprint that’s been handed to him.

In its earliest incarnation, After Earth was a far less ambitious concept – Will Smith’s original idea was to have a father and son be the victims of a drastic car accident on a remote mountain. It’s fascinating to wonder if this idea, pared down to its bare bones, would have been more grittily effective onscreen than the bloated sci-fi ‘epic’ the film has since become. That’s a question for an alternate universe, however. In this one, we and the Smiths have After Earth – a glossy, effects-heavy blockbuster of a movie in theory; an overblown, indulgent if competently made home video in practice. 

Basically: Not completely terrible but not particularly good either. Surely even  a poisonous, uninhabitable Earth deserves more than this.

Hancock (2008)

Now who had high expectations for a rollicking satire of a superhero movie starring Will Smith, Charlize Theron and Jason Bateman? The early promos for Hancock seemed so promising, presenting us with the ultimate anti-hero: the mysteriously named John Hancock (Smith), a super-powered individual who is both an unrepentent, incompetent drunk and the supposed saviour of the common folk – except, with every rescue attempt, he leaves more calamity and damage in his wake. Enter thereafter amiable PR dude Ray (Bateman), who is a good-hearted chap wearing his liberal heart so much on his sleeve that he can’t possibly find work anywhere else… until he offers to rebrand Hancock as a hero that the masses will appreciate. Of course, the film wouldn’t be complete, would it, without moments of sexual tension between Hancock and Ray’s inexplicably beautiful, loving wife Mary (Theron). As one can imagine, hijinks ensue…

… or do they? In any case, doesn’t that sound hilarious? Certainly the marketing firm handling this film couldn’t wait to milk the premise for all it was worth, unrolling an ad campaign at once sparkly and cheerful that promised lots of laughs and a sharp, skewed perspective on the crop of far-too-earnest superhero movies that have taken over the cineplex in recent summers. Surely we all need a dose of good ol’ sarcastic reality now and then with our spandex and popcorn?

The problem with Hancock, really, is that it just isn’t that film – in fact, it’s that film and at least one other film too. The humour, which is present and largely tongue-in-cheek, fills maybe the first third of the movie’s running time: whether it’s Hancock allowing himself to be taken to jail so that the public will start to miss him, or Ray trying to explain to Hancock the need for a snazzy black leather uniform (ha ha, such a dorky X-Men reference there!) beyond his usual beer-soaked sweats and stained baseball cap.

But the movie falters after that, slipping… nay, stumbling, like its titular drunken hero, into a pitch-black, myth-laden origin story. It’s no exaggeration to say that the audience barely has time to catch its breath in between tonal shifts, as Hancock’s need to reinvent himself and improve his image suddenly moves into far darker territory about understanding who he is, and why he is, and where his powers come from… not to mention, of course, the limits on said powers. Turns out his crush on Mary isn’t the simple crush of a rude, self-obsessed lout after all… and hang on, turns out Hancock isn’t the brash, boorish loser with inexplicable super-strength that we thought he was!

Not that this necessarily means the origin story provided is lacklustre or bad: in fact, it’s surprisingly dark and lush, teeming with possibilities and ideas as you come to understand the mysterious connection between Hancock and Mary and how Hancock came to be the boozy layabout he is today. The concept is intriguing, really, and one that plays out in scenes awash in rain-soaked hyperbole: dramatic tension literally bouncing off hospital walls as Hancock confronts his nemesis – not so much the nasty one-dimensional criminal he’s put behind bars, but his own history and story. As I said, interesting idea: an anti-hero literally crippled by his own past, and a hero only so far as he can break away from it.

As most directors would tell you, it’s hard enough work marshalling one film into the can and getting it to be halfway coherent. Imagine if you were wrestling with two very different beasts, thrown together in a filmic melée that featured characters with the same names but really were just two different movies: one funny and filled with slapstick (Hancock giving a neighbourhood bully a flying lesson the young pipsqueak will never forget), the other deadly serious and dripping with blood and tears (seriously). No small surprise that, although Hancock teems with good ideas and cast members who keep chugging along however many strange plot twists are thrown their way (especially Bateman who, despite a thankless and underwritten role, turns out to be the layman hero of a film that barely remembers his character’s name), the movie as a whole feels oddly empty and forced.

I Am Legend (2007)

Will Smith has spent the last few years of his career trying to balance movies suffused with Artistic Credibility (The Pursuit Of Happyness) and the crowd-pleasing, empty-headed rom-coms or sci-fi flicks (Hitch; I, Robot) that bring in big bucks at the box office. The success he’s had on both fronts has been mixed – excellent for anyone who isn’t Will Smith, middling for someone who is entertainment superstar Will Smith. So, with his latest release I Am Legend, he’s decided to try and bring the two together, by creating a sci-fi blockbuster that also boasts Artistic Credibility. Fortunately for entertainment superstar Will Smith, there probably aren’t many actors who can comfortably straddle both genres – and he does so with aplomb here.

We open on the desperately lonely Robert Neville (Smith), a scientist who has spent the last three years scavenging the empty streets of New York with his trusty hound Sam by his side. The world has been ravaged by a virus – initially thought to be a potential cure for a cancer – that turns its victims into howling creatures of the night: not quite vampires or zombies, but vicious and awfully terrifying once the sun sets. Neville has done the very bleak math: there aren’t many unscathed survivors of the virus, nor are there many who, like him, enjoy immunity from the disease. So he is, in effect, the last man left standing in his own playground – the windswept, overgrown city of New York – at least when the sun is up. Neville is nevertheless determined to find a cure for the virus… but his deafeningly quiet life, lacking in any sort of meaningful human companionship, starts to eat away at him.

There’s a twist that comes in the final third of the movie, one which shakes Neville’s routine to the core and which I won’t reveal. Suffice it to say that all hell breaks loose (this is quite evident in the trailer!) and Neville is forced to deal with an imploding situation and a threat to his life that he’s worked so hard to avoid for years. I think it’s pretty safe to also say that this development will either make or break your opinion of the film. I didn’t much like it: it changed the dark, closeted dynamic of the first two-thirds of the movie, and the film definitely faltered when it went from an almost elegaic character study to (essentially) a creature feature. But I do concede that the twist was necessary for purposes of ensuring that the plot (and the title!) of the film come together and make sense – there wasn’t really another way it could have ended, I suppose.

All that being said, even if you don’t like the twist, Legend remains an absolutely cracking watch: Smith carries two-thirds of the film on his (fortunately very) charismatic shoulders, and is more impressive here as he chases Sam down in an unabandoned warehouse, panic streaking his voice, than he’s been in a while. He turns in a powerfully affecting performance, covering a gamut of emotions from heartbreaking longing for human contact (as he suffers flashbacks to the happy life he used to lead before the virus ravaged the entire globe) to a quiet unravelling of his mental faculties. There are a few moments where it becomes clear just how harrowing the ordeal has been for Neville, being ostensibly the only person alive in New York – as he chats to Sam like he would to his presumably dead daughter, or when he snaps emotionally after having come far too close for his liking to losing the dog that has served as his constant companion for years. It’s remarkably sad the way in which Neville keeps a promise he jokingly made to Sam in the cold greyness of a video store he visits everyday for new movies to watch.

But Smith is helped also by the fact that he happens to be in a wonderfully paced film, with so much of it wrapped in a silence that’s almost suffocating – surely the point, as Neville struggles with nothing to listen to all day but the sound of his own voice and the frustratingly cheerful music of Bob Marley. There are genuine shocks scattered throughout the film, which in itself practically drips with tension on the occasions when Neville comes too close for comfort to the once-human creatures. Director Francis Lawrence proves here that Constantine wasn’t a fluke: he has the ability to take what could be awfully pulpy, trashy material, and turn it into something almost electrifying. He has an excellent grip on what makes an action scene arresting for the audience, and here measures out in aching moments of suspense Neville’s pain as he hangs helpless from a lamp-post, or as he careens recklessly in a car towards a horde of the night creatures, in a moment that’s horrifying not just in terms of good ol’ horror movie chills, but also as a sign of how Neville lives everyday on the edge and is just thisclose to breaking at an appropriate trigger.

There are, certainly, elements of Legend that just don’t work – the ending has shock value and emotional impact, sure, but it comes across as almost too pat (although again I acknowledge that it really couldn’t have ended any other way). The CGI is fantastic, yet dire at the same time: the denuded New York City is harsh and grey and chillingly beautiful, wiped of traces of any human activity even as the recognisable facade of Times Square is buried under wildgrass and becomes the turf of rampaging lions and leaping gazelles. The dire part, unfortunately, comes where the creatures are concerned: there are moments when the rushing hordes just plain look fake (fortunately these are only flashes, rather than extended scenes – Lawrence buys into the philosophy that a flash of something terrible is more terrifying than a full-on five minutes of it).

But Legend is that unusual, endangered beast – the year’s first enjoyable, surprisingly smart (though not too smart), moody, edgy blockbuster. Smith does wonders with a role that would have been a gift for any actor, but which he somehow manages to infuse with both charm and a smidge of madness to the extent that the audience (and I suspect even Neville himself!) is always kept guessing just what the main character will do next…

The Pursuit Of Happyness (2006)

And here we thought Will Smith had given up on his plan to reinvent himself as a dramatic actor, having already successfully set aside his TV/rap upstart roots to establish himself as one of the most bankable action/comedy stars in Hollywood today. After Ali, Smith has been mixing action blockbusters like I, Robot with fluff like Bad Boys II and Hitch – nothing particularly inspiring for his CV. But with The Pursuit Of Happyness, Smith is clearly trying to reassert his credentials as a Proper Actor, in a far more accessible, mainstream movie that will present a different, salt-and-peppered version of himself to a far wider audience.

While he can’t quite disguise his lanky build and occasional flash of movie-star charm, Smith quite successfully gets his teeth into the character of Chris Gardner, a real-life example of how sheer perseverance and relentless hard work can open doors for any American to engage in the Jefferson-coined ‘pursuit of life, liberty and happiness’. (The cutesy spelling is due to the unfortunate misspelling of a sign graffitied on the wall of the shabby Chinatown daycare centre Chris’ son attends.) All Chris wants is to take care of his adorable son Christopher (Jaden Smith, Smith’s real-life son) and haggard, put-upon wife Linda (Thandie Newton), but his life just doesn’t seem to be getting anywhere. Trapped in a contract to peddle over-priced medical scanners, Chris’ family is bleeding money even as Linda’s ability to deal with the stress of her multiple factory shifts and taking care of Chris frays. When Linda snaps and leaves, Chris takes charge of Christopher, even while he tries to make a better life for them both by daring to go beyond his meagre high-school qualifications in trying for an internship with stockbrokering firm Dean Witter. Much of the movie focuses on the various hardships Chris encounters in his quest to do so – be it the minor bumps like his boss borrowing a fiver from him when he is cash-strapped, to the major problems involving him and Christopher being turfed out of first their home and then their motel.

Considering that Happyness‘ fairly thin plot is mostly predictable pablum, one factor that most definitely works in the movie’s favour is that it is based on a true story. As increasingly terrible misfortunes pile on Chris’ shoulders, the movie’s two-hour running time might well be impossible to bear if the audience didn’t know that this really did happen to someone in real life. Of course, this factor alone cannot salvage an entire movie. Many an insufferable movie has been based on a true story.

What also works for Happyness is its hardworking cast. Both Smiths share a easy, effective chemistry that is clearly grounded in their real-life relationship. Chris’ love for his son is so palpable it’s difficult to be anything but frustrated on his behalf when his life continues to take its myriad twists and (ridiculously) his scanners keep getting stolen, either by hippies or crazy drifters. Smith also delivers a powerful, though not exactly revelatory, performance – Chris’ determination to protect Christopher, even as he drags his son relentlessly across town every afternoon so they can be ensured bed space in the local homeless shelter, is written across Smith’s expressive face. He’s ably supported by little Jaden, who owns the word ‘cute’, and Newton is the very picture of a woman whose nerves have been torn to shreds by all she’s had to endure, and is great in a scene that shows her finally taking her leave of them – even while her love for both husband and son remain strong, it’s not enough to keep her by their side.

There really isn’t anything much one can bring up in terms of complaints about the movie, quite simply because if you watch it (and don’t be misled by the poster and its star into thinking that it’s a comedy), you know just what you’re getting into, and that’s exactly what you’re given. It’s workmanlike, by-the-numbers but competently executed stuff that is not too taxing to watch and not too frustrating to sit through. Of course, the movie is long. The movie is predictable. It’s not a great, classic movie by any means. But does it remain entertaining for the most part? Yes. Surprisingly, as such based-on-a-true-story, inspirational type Message Movies go, Happyness – despite its remarkably long running time – manages to stay just the right side of cloying, moralising drivel. Sure it treads on thin ice once or twice, but it does manage to avoid consigning itself to the traditional fate of such movies i.e., being confined in immediate ignominy to afternoon repeats on the Hallmark Channel after a disappointing two-day theatre run. (I exaggerate, I know!) There are certainly worse things you could stumble into in a multiplex. Although I would caution you not to feel as if you have to hurry to catch it, since watching this movie on a big screen doesn’t necessarily enhance the experience. Hallmark really might do just as well in that regard…