Movie Review: Aladin

Way to ruin one of the most charming kiddie tales of all time! 'Aladin' merely appeals to folks who have never before seen a fantasy flick.

Aladin is a bellicose, straining mess that doesn't even work on the simplest diversionary level. The cast, including Big B, Sanjay Dutt and Ritesh Deshmukh shuffles its way through an unending parade of eye-wrenching visual effects, their collective body language asking the producers for their paycheck already. Although very young children may enjoy its garish blend of clunky visuals and sophomoric humor, viewers over the age of six will find this adaptation of the tale a crushing bore.

So who's to blame here? Writer-director Sujoy Ghosh for one, as no amount of bells & whistles can salvage a screenplay this half-baked. The film tries so hard to be funny, aiming alternately at kids and their parents, that it misses on all counts. What we get is a product entirely devoid of story, wit, style and character development.

The story remains almost the same, Aladin (Ritesh) is an orphan and the butt of all jokes, bullied by everyone he knows. Along comes Jasmine (Jacqueline) who gifts him a lamp on his birthday. Lo and behold the Big B Genie appears and grants Aladin three wishes, and what follows is Big B playing the cupid leading to a joyless and charmless disaster of a movie. Amitabh Bachchan is gruesomely over the top and unfunny. His outlandish costumes reminds us of an unsettling progeny of Bappi Lahri and Snoop Dog. Sanjay Dutt seems doped out in his laughably bad turn as the Ringmaster. Jacqueline Fernandez does her bit of smiling and looking pretty. Ritesh Deshmukh does all he can but is ultimately forgettable. Ratna Pathak Shah, Victor Bannerji and Mita Vashisht are criminally wasted.

At the screening of 'Aladin,' a woman lamented, 'It's like a 5 year old guy made this.' She was right. Give 'Aladin' a few years, by then, it might be delightfully bad. Meanwhile I'm off to watch the 1994 animated Disney version.