Aladdin 4K Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		3.5
Video		4.5
Audio		4.5
Extras		2.5
Overall		4.0

Aladdin 4K Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Martin Liebman September 1, 2019

It's no surprise that Disney is on the top of the moviemaking world right now. The box office-busting numbers are staggering, and it's not just because the company has absorbed so many popular properties. It's also because of the sheer volume of films the studio is releasing, which includes live action adaptations of favorite internal animated films of yore releasing at a furious, fever pace. These adaptations stretch back further than 2015, but that year's Cinderella certainly seemed to kick the high profile remakes into high gear. Since then it's been a steady parade of films of varying qualities, including The Jungle Book, Beauty and the Beast, Dumbo, and now Aladdin, the remake of the treasured 1992 animated film of the same name that ranks highly on many Disney fans' lists of favorites. Director Guy Ritchie's (Sherlock Holmes) vision for the live action isn't far off the mark, even if it's not particularly imaginative, offering what looks and feels like a fairly straight, if not slightly expanded, take on the treasured tale, favoring lavish production design over a more expansive or expressive narrative focus.

Aladdin (Mena Massoud) and his pet monkey Abu are common thieves who sell their stolen goods for far less than they are worth, happy to earn a few bites to eat in exchange for the merchandise. One day, Aladdin bumps into a beautiful woman named Jasmine (Naomi Scott) who melts his heart. He does his best to resist the urge to steal some of her precious jewels -- it’s obvious she comes from the nearby palace, not the streets -- but he winds up with one of her bracelets, anyway. The relationship grows sour, doubly so when Aladdin learns she’s the princess of Agrabah. When the evil Jafar (Marwan Kenzari) identifies Aladdin as the foretold "diamond in the rough” who can safely enter a living cave and retrieve an all-powerful lamp, he is kidnaped and forced to do so. He barely escapes with the lamp and his life and quickly discovers inside of the prize a genie (Will Smith) who promises to grant him three wishes. Aladdin wishes for nothing more than to be a prince who can rightly marry the princess, but his sudden transformation is interrupted by a ruthless Jafar who will stop at nothing to secure the lamp.

Aladdin as a live action film works well at best and well enough at worst. It's certainly lacking the charms of the original picture as it attempts to balance an approachable, breezy, and light front of fun and music against the ferociously dark beats that surround the characters' plight and fight against the ruthless Jafar. Yet even in Jafar the filmmakers seem bent on walking that fine line between approachability and heinous villainy. Kenzari never seems to be able to take the character as far as he thematically needs to go. There's a clear wrestling with the rating and the story's needs, a balance the animated film could walk with more confidence. Here, there's an effort to mask a somewhat tame and not at all risky portrayal under a deluge of sight and sound that allows Kenzari to ham it up rather than go full-on wicked.

Fortunately, the film's magical tones largely mask the somewhat neutered villain. It's a spectacle of seamless digital sophistication that plays up the effects as necessary -- which is often -- but they're so integral to the movie and done so well that there's a near seamless blend of live action, artificial, and hybrids in between. Audiences will feel like Aladdin and Jasmine are soaring on a carpet and that Will Smith has been transformed into a hulking blue genie. Smith, with the biggest shoes to fill and the most important part to play, proves to be inspired casting, finding the perfect balance between loquaciousness and a larger-than-life presence. Smith stretches the partially CGI character well beyond any of the humans, working a balance between his adherence to genie duties, his longing to escape his captivity, his burgeoning friendship with Aladdin, and the realities of the transforming world around him. It's solid work and one of Smith's best performances in years.

Aladdin 4K Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

The included screenshots are sourced from a 1080p Blu-ray disc.

Aladdin's 2160p/HDR UHD, framed at 2.39:1, is something akin to a nuts-and-bolts presentation for the format. It offers the obligatory light textural upgrades, modest improvements to sharpness, and general deepening (and darkening) of the color palette by way of the HDR color parameters. Genie blue displays with firmer, darker, more robust and intense blue, solidifying the color that on Blu-ray appears comparatively light and Smurf-y. Various jewels and some of the gold magical dust that floats around Genie appears shiner, more colorfully robust, more sparkly. Bright light sources appear more brilliant without pushing overly intense. Daytime and well-lit scenes enjoy a fairly strong push towards greater color solidification, even if the picture appears a bit darker overall.

Textural increases are modest, but appreciable. Close-ups reveal finer clothing and skin textures, not to any extreme extent but playing around with the added resolution to squeeze out just a little more total clarity and sharpness that the 1080p image cannot quite match. Finer pore details, more clearly dense hairs, and more resplendent jewels and fabrics bear the fruits in close-up. Even digital constructs enjoy improved clarity. The differences here are not drastic on either end. The HDR squeezes out a little more color depth and punch to sure up the movie's most critical hues while improvements to textures and total sharpness are slight but nevertheless critical. This is a good UHD, nothing out of the ordinary but a solid image on its own and a nice little boost next to the Blu-ray.

Aladdin 4K Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Aladdin's UHD Dolby Atmos soundtrack isn't wholly dissimilar from the Blu-ray's DTS-HD Master Audio 7.1 lossless soundtrack. It requires that all-but-obligatory upward volume knob movement from calibrated reference listening levels; it's hushed and timid without turning it up. The good news is that once it's there it's a full, potent soundtrack. If there's a reservedness to the bass it's not anywhere near as immediately obvious as some of the studio's other "neutered" tracks. It's surprisingly full and engaging at the low end, and there is plenty of opportunity through both song and sound effects for the subwoofer to participate, and participate it does. Musical engagement is of particular note; it's diffuse throughout the stage, offering large front end presence, bombarding but attuned surround integration, and a hearty low end compliment. Ditto effects. The film employs several scenes which stretch the stage and the subwoofer both, fully drawing the listener into a veritable maelstrom of sound that might not quite reach the pinnacle of sonic clarity and lifelike transparency (it's a Fantasy film after all, though) but with enough core clarity to carry the bellicose effects and chaotic immersion. The Atmos configuration folds in the overhead channels as necessary -- which is rather consistently -- with well defined support elements and a few more discrete details that see the presentation pull away from the DTS track. It's an engaging, exciting, borderline exacting listen. Perfectly executed dialogue rounds the track into winning form.

Aladdin 4K Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

Aladdin contains a fairly basic assortment of extras, including three featurettes, a few deleted scenes, and music videos, all on the bundled Blu-ray. A Movies Anywhere digital copy code is included with purchase. This release ships with an embossed slipcover.

• Aladdin's Video Journal: A New Fantastic Point of View (1080p, 10:39): Watch Actor Mena Massoud's phone camera journal of his experiences in making Aladdin. There are cast and crew interview snippets and plenty of enticing behind-the-scenes highlights.
• Deleted Song (1080p, 2:20): Composer Alan Menken introduces "Desert Moon."
• Guy Ritchie: A Cinematic Genie (1080p, 5:28): A quick look at Richie's filmmaking, drives and inspirations, his vision for the movie, the qualities he brings to the set, and more.
• A Friend Like Genie (1080p, 4:31): Smith discusses the challenges and rewards of following up on Robin Williams' performance of the Genie in the original animated film.
• Deleted Scenes (1080p, 10:44 total runtime): Included are Falling Petals Into OJ, Jafar's Magic Orrery, Anders' Gift, Wrong Wishes, Silly Old Fool, and Post Yam Jam Debrief.
• Music Videos (1080p, 11:33): Included are "Speechless" - Performed by Naomi Scott, "A Whole New World" - Performed by Zayn and Zhavia Ward, and "A Whole New World" ("Un Mundo Ideal") - Performed by Zayn and Becky G.
• Bloopers (1080p, 2:07): Humorous moments from the shoot.

Aladdin 4K Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Aladdin makes for a fun little diversion and a nice compliment to the original animated film. It's well cast and its visuals are everything one would expect of a live action Aladdin translation. It's not the finest of Disney's live action re-imaginings, but it's certainly far from the worst. Disney's UHDy delivers high solid video and audio presentations. Supplements are a little thin but adequate. Recommended.