I am going to break with my traditional introduction - and
the reasons are twofold. The first is that no one will care/notice/read this
and the second is that Return of Jafar
is a departure for me, in that it is genuinely brilliant. I’ve never seen anything
like it, but I hope to again one day in my life. Luckily I have it on video.
The plot, such as it is, takes off Not-Too-Long after the events of Aladdin;
his good self and Jasmine are betrothed and he now lives the Arabian equivalent
of the Life of Riley – but that hasn’t deterred him from stealing from the rich
and giving to the poor. The film’s opening sequence takes place somewhere not
dissimilar to the Cave of Wonders – only not a giant, sandy lion mouth - where Aladdin battles some less humanitarian
thieves (you can tell they’re bad ‘cause of their accents, Jason Alexander
excluded) for the Less Wondrous Cave’s gold. Aladdin is cheeky, he flies away,
smooches with Jas, accidentally gets his life saved by Iago, who whilst still
retaining his quippy bent, comes good, and WHOA, WHOA, WHOA…
I assure you, I will go on to
discuss the finer points of this absurd feature; however, one component must
first be acknowledged: Gilbert Gottfried. For whatever reason, the guy decided
to take this gig semi-seriously, and as a result, he hit a home run. He acts
his socks off and the character is given a legitimate arch, aside from the
ridiculousness of his escape (him and Jafar dig their way out of the Cave of
Wonders...) He then abandons his long time cohort, realising he could get a lot
further going his own way and then,
entirely for his own gain, decides to ally himself with Aladdin and Friends.
But along the way, he learns the value of their friendship and realises that
this is far more valuable than any power he ever had. Lessons are learnt, bonds
are forged, yadda-yadda-yadda. But the genuine discomfort Gottfried portrays
when Jafar blackmails him into betraying his new family is weirdly moving, as
is the final scene, wherein he nearly dies to save them. So yeah. Gold star for
Gottfried. The same cannot be said about the rest of the movie.
Return of Jafar is a mess of
continuity errors, weird fourth wall jokes, cruise liner standard
song-and-dance numbers and poor, poor Dan Castanellaneta, as the Genie. A
little history lesson on the movie; Robin Williams fell out big time with the
studio, after they went back on their promise to not use his name and image to
promote the Genie as a major character in Aladdin – this was in exchange for him
doing the movie at a fraction of his usual pay (so far, so petty, but hey-ho).
Anyway, long story short, they made up, and Castanellaneta’s dialogue for the
third film in the franchise was dubbed over by Williams. If only the poor guy
didn’t have to take credit for this movie, either. The writing for the Genie is
utterly devoid of any context, or indeed humour. In the first movie, they
utilized Robin Williams’ GENIEus (…) improvisational skills, but the impressions,
the references, the nineties slang, they all were rooted in what was going on
in the plot. In Return of Jafar, the Genie will literally say something and
turn into it, as if they’re trying to cram in as many “gags” as they can, just
to make the time pass.
The writing for the rest of the
characters doesn’t fare any better; Aladdin himself is insufferably smarmy,
with none of the charm he had in his namesake movie. He nudges, he winks, he
acts like an idiot, but for whatever reason, now has no shred of his old
insecurities, and struts about like an entitled fuck. Jasmine is just… Weird…
Considering she was another one of Disney’s strong-willed heroines, it’s a
pretty big middle finger to the first film that they’ve made her so permanently
seductive, she appears almost drugged. The pair go through a cookie-cutter
conflict and we don’t give a damn. But we have a helluva time along the way,
and here’s why:
Eyebrows disappear and reappear,
characters behave with either no motivation, or one so far removed from
reality, that the audience is none the wiser, facial expressions are surreally
badly animated and shot in weird close-ups and… These things are a joy to
behold and joy to share with and point out to other people. Much like The Room,
mutual bafflement is the key to this film. It’s best watched with a couple of
friends at 3 o’clock in the morning. Like all the best bad movies. And for
those reasons, I’m glad to have seen it nine-hundred times.
