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		  Aladdin (9/10)  
		by Tony Medley 
		Runtime 128 minutes.  
		PG.  
		Bollywood comes to Hollywood. A 
		boffo performance by Will Smith as genie is bolstered by vivid 
		Technicolor, colorful costumes, and wonderful music and dancing. 
		While the story hasn’t changed (Aladdin 
		[Mena Massoud] is still a street guy who falls for a princess, Jasmine [Naomi 
		Scott] and the genie is out to help him by granting him the proverbial 
		three wishes), this is not a duplicate of your parents’ Aladdin story. 
		For one thing, the screenwriters created a new character, Dalia (Nasim Pedrad), 
		who is Jasmine’s lady in waiting. Dalia provides love interest for the 
		genie. So we not only have Aladdin hot for Jasmine, we also have 
		genie hot for Dalia (and vice-versa). 
		It was filmed by director Guy 
		Ritchie (with writing credits to John August and Ritchie) in England 
		and Jordan with an abundance of CGI. In fact the visual effects credits 
		are longer than any I’ve seen. But they did their job well because the 
		visual effects are award-quality. 
		Set in the fictional city of 
		Agrabah, the 200 yard-long set was planned with the musical numbers “One Jump 
		Ahead” and “Prince Ali” in mind. It took five days, 250 dancers, 200 
		costumes, and 200 extras just to to shoot the “Prince Ali” number. 
		Making a live action movie out 
		of a previous animated one is chancy, but Disney did a good job. This is 
		an entertaining, fun film. 
		
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