Sadly Sahil Khan can��t even match Rajat Bedi in being the bad bully guy. The basic romance plot reminds of Rakesh Roshan��s Koi Mil Gaya with Riteish playing the underdog and Genie replacing Jadoo who helps him woo the girl. Some characters of the Ringmaster��s crew are creatively caricatured like a Wolverine-nailed sidekick and a masked sexy figure without a face.īut soon enough the bound script (that��s Sujoy��s banner name) writing by Sujoy Ghosh, Ritesh Shah and Suresh Nair opens up to an assortment of Bollywood clich��s.

Ghosh has a vibrant vision in depicting scenes where the Genie opens doors to Aladin��s dreams. A female frog serves as a reference to the fable of The Frog Prince. Characterizations of Marjina and Qasim are loosely derived from another popular Arabian Nights story Alibaba and the Forty Thieves. I will leave you with a link to the trailer and my recommendation that you check this movie out! You can order it on DVD via Ghosh does make a decent attempt to interpret the anecdotes of Aladin in his own cinematic language.

“Bachke O Bachke”: I love that the heroes and villains take five minutes before the final showdown to sing about it! In this video you can also see my favourite of the antagonists, a fire-breathing woman who never speaks and always wears a solid white mask.

I swear the dance moves from 2:51 to 2:55 are taken straight from Michael Jackson’s “Dangerous,” which is kind of fantastic hahaha.

“Tak Dhina Dhin”: The first song sung by Genius.

Two other songs I enjoyed (no subtitles on any of these, unfortunately!): Embedded above is “Genie Rap,” my favourite of the movie’s songs, which I think gives you an idea both of Genius’s personality and of the movie’s earnest ridiculousness. Genius was a definite highlight of the movie for me. It also adds a bit of mystery to the character that I found really interesting. I think this interpretation perfectly suits a character who has almost unlimited powers. Genius is always perfectly dressed, always confident and in control.

I was glad to see this and I think it really worked. The genie character, who in this movie is named Genius, is in some ways the complete opposite of Robin Williams’ interpretation of the character. I even enjoyed the new dramatic backstory that they added to the relationship between Aladdin and his genie. I think I was in exactly the right mood for an enthusiastic but totally ridiculous take on a favourite story, and this movie delivered exactly that. But despite all of this, I found the movie to be really entertaining. I also might point out that Aladin’s classmates teasing him about his name for over a decade threatened my suspension of disbelief a lot more than a magical man who lives in a lamp ever has. I would agree that certain aspects of the story aren’t given enough time to develop, and I would add to that my frustration with Jasmine’s being an expert at karate only until the exact moment when the screenwriter wanted her to be a damsel in distress. This movie seems to have received mainly negative reviews from critics, who criticized the movie for adding too many new elements that distract from the charm of the original Aladdin story. Apart from the story it’s based on and the name of the love interest it has so little to do with Disney’s Aladdin that maybe I shouldn’t even post about it on a Disney blog, but I enjoyed it so thoroughly that I’m going to anyway! A couple weeks ago, my neighbour and I watched the 2009 Bollywood movie Aladin.

Aladin 2009 running time