Aladdin (DVD)

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Thank heaven for Robin Williams.

What might have been just another Disney animated cartoon is saved by the sharp-edged humor of Williams as the voice of the Blue Genie. Williams makes 1992's "Aladdin" appealing for adults as well as for children and establishes the musical-adventure as a Disney classic.

Ostensibly, the film is based on the stories of Scheherazade in the "1001 Arabian Nights," but lovers of old movies will recognize at once that the characters are patterned after those in Alexander Korda's 1940 live-action production "The Thief of Bagdad." In the older film, the parts of the young thief, the Princess, Jaffar, the Sultan, and the Genie were played by Sabu, June Duprez, Conrad Veidt, Miles Malleson, and Rex Ingram. Disney's new reworking of the story uses pretty much the same physical appearances and personalities of the older movie characters, with Jafar (earlier spelled with two f's) a dead ringer for Veidt.

"Aladdin" is set in the third century (presumably A.D.) in the mythical city of Agrabah, where a trio of story lines unfold simultaneously and merge about halfway though the plot. (1) The Sultan (voiced by Douglas Seale) of Agrabah has a beautiful young daughter, Princess Jasmine (Linda Larkin), who by law must marry within three days. (2) A handsome young street urchin, Aladdin (Scott Weinger), is merrily thieving, lying, and conning his way around the city when he coincidentally meets and charms the Princess. And (3) the Sultan's chief advisor, the villainous Grand Vizier Jafar (Jonathan Freeman), is out to find a magic lamp with a Genie (Robin Williams) inside that will make him the most powerful man on earth.

Complications: The Princess must only wed a prince, but she falls in love with the penniless Aladdin instead. And Jafar discovers that in order to retrieve the lamp from its hiding place in the Cave of Wonders, he needs to find a "diamond in the rough" to do the job. Turns out that Aladdin is just that diamond.

Frankly, I have always found the sweet young couple, Aladdin and Jasmine, more than a bit saccharine, and if the movie were left entirely to them, it would be rather boring. It's Williams who makes the whole thing work, first as a street peddler who introduces the story and then as the Genie of the Lamp who provides Aladdin with three wishes. Williams is at the top of his form, talking a mile a minute of very funny patter, much of which will go right over the heads of youngsters. Take, for instance, his impersonations of Ed Sullivan, Peter Lorre, Rodney Dangerfield, and William F. Buckley, Jr. How many young adults even know them? Yet it doesn't matter because Williams' lines are so witty, so fast, so well timed, and so well inflected, they're amusing anyway.

The supporting players are just as good. Jonathan Freeman's Jafar is brilliantly wicked, superior one minute and cowering the next. His loudmouthed parrot, Iago (voiced by loudmouthed Gilbert Gottfried), makes a wonderful villain's toady. And Aladdin's pet monkey, Abu (Frank Welker), is an ideal hero's comic sidekick (and Abu was the original name of the hero himself in "The Thief of Bagdad").

As far as Disney musicals are concerned, while this one is not among the best, it holds its own. The original score by Alan Menken ("The Little Mermaid," "Beauty and the Beast") and song lyrics by Howard Ashman and Tim Rice manage at least to hold our interest for the moment and go a long way toward maintaining the proper tone for each segment of the picture. The songs include "Arabian Nights," "One Jump Ahead," "Friend Like Me," "Prince Ali," and the Oscar-winning "A Whole New World." Insofar as I'm concerned, it was "Friend Like Me" that stood out and remains a solid favorite.

When you factor in Disney's attractive 2-D animation, especially the many rich and refined hues at work, the music, the exotic locations and costumes, the colorful characters, and, of course, Robin Williams, "Aladdin" becomes a must-see cartoon, and one that is sure to reward viewers on repeat viewings.

Video:
What can I say? It's picture perfect. Granted, it may be easier to reproduce traditional 2-D animation on disc than to duplicate the more-subtle nuances of human features, but for a cartoon this is about as good as it gets. "Aladdin" and "Beauty and the Beast" and "Snow White" are the conventional cartoon world's answer, in terms of great transfers, to the 3-D CGI creations of "Toy Story," "Monsters, Inc." and "Finding Nemo." In other words, the older animation technique may not be as spectacular as its newer counterpart, but its reproduction on disc is just as stunning.

The picture and sound on "Aladdin" are mastered to THX standards, and Disney engineers use a high bit rate and an enhanced, anamorphic transfer to secure as good a visual image as possible. The results are beautiful colors, lush, deep, and solid, sharp object delineation, and virtually no jittery lines. I can't imagine the image for this movie being any better until, perhaps, high-definition comes along.