Aladdin

Date watched- 30th October 2010

Genre; Children’s, Animated, Fairy Tale, Disney
Year; 1992
Running Time; 1 hour 30 minutes
Directed and written by; Ron Clements & John Musker
Actors; Scott Weinger, Robin Williams, Linda Larkin, Jonathan Freeman, Frank Welker, Gilbert Gottfried, Douglas Seale.

Animation 3/5 (but a 5 back in the day before all this “modern” animation)
Keeping my attention 3.5/4
Disney Songs 4/5
Story/Plot 3.5/6
Total 14.5/20

Plot

The Disney Classic, Aladdin. Aladdin, a street urchin, finds himself falling in love with Princess Jasmine, but she can only marry a prince. Aladdin finds himself as a pawn in the evil plot of Jafar (Jasmine’s father’s advisor) which leads Aladdin to a magic lamp, could the Genie inside be his way of becoming a Prince and living happily ever after with Jasmine or will Aladdin be seen for what he really is?

My Personal Views

I love this movie and I don’t care who knows. I watched this movie in bed this week, I’ve been a bit ill, and it was all I needed to help cheer me up.

I originally was bought this movie on VHS (remember those?) by my Dad. He bought it from Tescos when I was with him pretty much when it was first out. I think I might have badgered him a bit too much but because he is a great Dad he bought it for me. I would never have screamed or cried if he didn’t buy it so I guess he just thought it must be worth it to make me happy, one of the few benefits of having a parent away a lot when you’re growing up because they are in the armed forces! I seem to remember that I had watched the VHS so much that even the auto tracking function on the video recorder was having no effect on the ever increasing number of squiggly lines on the recording, oh those were the days. It certainly makes you marvel at the ‘modern’ technology of DVD and Blu-ray.

This movie is full of memorable songs which even days after watching the movie I am still singing along to in my head, and from time to time out loud. “On our magic carpet ride, a whole new world...” sorry excuse me for that!

So from an actor side of things, this is one of my first encounters with Robin Williams, who until not very long ago I only knew from Aladdin, Mrs Doubtfire and a various smattering of other family favourites. It was always a disappointment whenever I watched Return of Jafar as a kid (we got that on VHS from Asda some years after it came out because it was £3 and didn’t have the original box) that Robin Williams wasn’t reprising his voice role as the Genie.

As a child I also had the Aladdin and Princess Jasmine dolls, to be honest I still have them lurking around somewhere and so growing up the experience of Aladdin came from much more than just the VHS.

Confession: for some reason (other than Genie) my favourite character is the Magic Carpet!

Outcome

Already back on the shelf and staying firmly put where it is.