【Just a Stranger】

It's a cliché by this point to wonder about the purpose of Disney's live-action remakes. They make lots of money,Just a Stranger they scratch a nostalgic itch, they reintroduce these stories to a new generation -- oh, and did I mention they make lots and lots of money?

But the question is impossible to ignore when the films themselves seem torn between recreating every magical moment you loved in the original, and trying to forge something genuinely new -- and with few exceptions, the remakes rarely seem to measure up.

There's more of Aladdin than ever, but on the whole it's less satisfying.

Aladdin, alas, is no exception. It sweats and strains to deliver exactly the Aladdinyou remember from your childhood, from the classic songs to the soaring carpet ride. Yet it feels most enchanting in the rare moments that it allows itself to relax a bit and lean into the chemistry of its cast.

The sorriest casualty of Aladdin's faithfulness is the Genie. He's played here by Will Smith, who might have been a brilliant pick if the role had been tailored to his own cool-but-playful persona. But Aladdinseems unwilling to let go of Robin Williams' Genie, and so Smith is stuck singing songs written for someone else's talents and delivering jokes in someone else's cadence, in the body of a character designed for a totally different medium. (No, the blue Genie never stops looking freaky.) It's no wonder he doesn't wear them well.

The character's signature numbers, "Friend Like Me" and "Prince Ali," are near-disasters, though that's not entirely Smith's fault. Director Guy Ritchie and his team seem to have no idea how to stage and shoot a musical number; instead of establishing a rhythm and letting us focus on the spectacle, they crowd the screen with so much stuff that it all blurs together, and then speed up the dancing to a bizarre unnatural pace.

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Then again, the "more stuff" approach fits with the rest of the film. Aladdinpaints Agrabah as a city crowded with people and bursting with color, but it's hard to understand exactly what the characters mean when they describe it as beautiful, since from our viewpoint it just looks like so many CG-rendered building blocks.

Likewise, the remake adds over half an hour of run time to the original's slim 90 minutes, giving us more action, more supporting characters, more of Genie's personal life, and more of Jasmine's perspective, with mixed results. These additions present new opportunities for the film to dig deeper into the story's themes and update its lessons, but the necessity of hitting all the nostalgic hallmarks means the story can't actually get very far in exploring any of them. There's more of Aladdinthan ever, but on the whole it's less satisfying.

Still, the remake isn't a total loss, and that is largely thanks to Aladdin himself. Mena Massoud is perfectly cast as Aladdin, and makes as much clear from his first crooked smile. He nails the character's boyish mischievousness and his fundamental decency, and is so winning any time he's onscreen that it suddenly becomes much easier to overlook the film's major flaws.

SEE ALSO: Will Smith previews his version of 'Aladdin' classic 'Friend Like Me' and it's actually great

Especially since Massoud happens to have fantastic chemistry with everyone else in the film. Smith's most likable scenes are the ones where he and Massoud simply get to play the Genie and Aladdin as buddies who might egg each other on or help each other out; he and Naomi Scott, who plays Jasmine, sell the heck out of their fairy-tale romance. (Though this film's "A Whole New World" still leaves something to be desired.) He even manages to build a convincing rapport with his CG monkey and CG carpet.

With Massoud, Aladdinhits that sweet spot all these remakes are aiming for: The comfort of the familiar, with the thrill of a new discovery. If only the rest of the film had been up to his level, this could have been a new classic. As it is, we're left to wonder why we needed to go through this all again.

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