Operation Fortune: Ruse de Guerre

via Lionsgate

Movie distribution is a complete mess. With studios holding out for theatrical releases while streaming services poach viewers from cinema seats, industry giants seem to be at war. And We, The People — who only want to watch exceptional movies — are the victims.

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Film News

Millie Bobby Brown's New Movie Reveals Why Sherlock Holmes Is a Lousy Character

Sherlock Holmes can't show emotion in Enola Holmes, or Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's step great grandson will sue...

British actress Millie Bobby Brown wearing Louis Vuitton arrives at the World Premiere Of Netflix's 'Enola Holmes 2' held at The Paris Theater in Manhattan, New York City, New York, United States.

Photo by Image Press Agency/NurPhoto/Shutterstock

The Sherlock Holmes you know and love is a lousy character.

He's a misogynist, a drug addict, a condescending and ignorant man. But even that whole mess isn't enough to make him actually interesting.

No offense to Benedict Cumberbatch—who brought his dashing good looks and overwhelming sexual charisma to the character—but there's just not that much you can do with the famous master of deduction (who almost exclusively used inductive reasoning—shout out to the pedants in the audience). He's got some impressive speeches and some flashy tricks, but he's seemingly devoid of an internal life.

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The live-action Aladdin remake is what you get when you take what white people think the Middle East is and colonize it with peppy, witless background actors.

I don't need to set up the premise of Aladdin for you; you already know the story. And that's what the new Disney live-action remake assumes, too, skipping character introductions in the beginning for a montage of the hot-spots in the fictional city of Agrabah - from the Sultan's palace overlooking the sprawling city to the Cave of Wonders with its Mufasa face. It's a sweeping CGI landscape, and after the nauseating roller coaster we meet our hero, Aladdin, played by newcomer Mena Massoud. He's running from the palace guards and bumps into Jasmine in the market, played by Disney Channel's Naomi Scott; he immediately charms her. Their chemistry is as instant and intolerable as a TV dinner.

All this action takes place on a painfully tacky sound stage, bustling with vaguely Middle-Eastern-looking people of all different kinds. Beards and burkas, eyeliner and turbans; it's like the wardrobe department raided the "Oriental" section of a Halloween Adventure store. And that's what the painful points of this film are: its creative failures. The Disney Aladdin story in itself is an American-made bastardization of Middle Eastern and Oriental cultures blended together to be consumed. Much like Pocahontas and Mulan, it was a story written by white people to sell toys to all the little boys and girls of America. So no one should expect this movie to depict literal Egypt, or Saudi Arabia, or Lebanon, or a whole host of other cultures that are being flimsily referenced. But to anyone who has actually been to the Middle East… the environment looks more like an amusement park attraction than a place anyone could conceivably live in. Guy Ritchie puts so much effort into imitating the world of the animated original that the film misses opportunities to shine on its own.

Massoud does a serviceable job as Aladdin, as his handsome blank expression becomes endearing after a while. But Scott steals the spotlight with her genuinely compelling performance as a politically-minded princess who longs to be sultan. As the movie chugs along, you start to get the sense that this should have been Jasmine's movie. Her character motivation is much stronger than Aladdin's, who ultimately just wants to impress some chick he met one day earlier. Luckily, Jasmine gets plenty of screentime to show off her acting and singing chops, which provide the only breaks from obnoxiously noticeable autotune.

Surprisingly, Will Smith is pretty good in this movie. That is to say, when he isn't the weird, uncanny-valley/blue-man-group Will Smith we glimpsed in the film's trailers, he holds it down as the Genie. The most glaring moments of disillusionment come when Robin William's iconic one-liners are recited word for word. For instance, Smith just can't quite capture the comedic timing Williams had with his "teeny-tiny living space" line. The musical number "Friend Like Me" was particularly painful, but that might have been my stomach adjusting to the sight of a blue, photo-realistic, steroided Will Smith floating on a cloud. With that being said, when Smith isn't blue, he's fun to watch. His best moments come from playing the classic, 6'2, lovable Will Smith. There's a particularly phenomenal scene in which Aladdin is attempting to impress the princess as Prince Ali, and Smith's ad-libs were the freshest part of the entire film. I won't spoil them, but you'll be genuinely laughing the entire time.

Should you see this movie? Eh, sure. It offers some good new ideas that I would have loved to see explored more, like Genie hanging out among the humans and Jasmine's growth as a royal leader. Those concepts stand up well on their own and allow the actors to leverage their very obvious strengths. But director Guy Ritchie either didn't have a vision for this film or he wasn't allowed by the Disney powers that be to realize it. So instead, we have cartoonish acting, hokey sets, and very, very low stakes in a movie that should be a mystical adventure. If you're not too concerned with something new and just want to watch a bunch of faux-Arabs onscreen acting out your favorite childhood movie, then this live-action remake of Aladdin is for you.

Rating: ⚡⚡

FILM

Now in Theaters: 5 New Movies for the Weekend of May 24

Watch Will Smith degrade himself with blue body paint in Disney's "Aladdin."

Theater

Photo by Felix Mooneeram on Unsplash

Welcome back to "Now in Theaters: 5 New Movies for the Weekend."

This week, Will Smith degrades himself with blue body paint for our amusement.

WIDE RELEASE:

Booksmart

BOOKSMART Trailer (2019) Lisa Kudrow, Olivia Wild, Teen Moviewww.youtube.com

Directed by Olivia Wilde and produced by Will Ferrell and Adam McKay, Booksmart looks like a Gen-Z version of Superbad. The movie follows two high school seniors, Amy and Molly, who decide that the eve of their graduation is the perfect time to make up for "wasting" their teenage years on studying and achieving good grades. Early reviews are overwhelmingly positive, and the movie looks raunchy, edgy, and representative. Booksmart is easily my pick of the week.

Aladdin

Disney's Aladdin Official Trailer - In Theaters May 24!www.youtube.com

Disney's latest live-action adaptation is here, and like all the live-action adaptations before it, Aladdin looks...okay, I guess. Honestly, it's hard for me to understand the appeal of all these live-action Disney adaptations. They're technically fine, but considering the fact that animation brought so much of the inherent charm and magic to the originals, these remakes seem doomed to always come up short. Take Genie, for example. Animated goofball Genie is fun and awesome. Partially-CGI-blue-body-paint-Will-Smith Genie is just unsettling.

Brightburn

BRIGHTBURN - Official Trailer #2www.youtube.com

What if Superman...was evil? That's pretty much the premise behind Brightburn, a superhero horror movie produced by James Gunn and written by his brother and his cousin. I love the idea of a horror movie that subverts superhero archetypes, but at the same time, the trailer looks surprisingly dull considering the subject matter. Ultimately, this might be more of a generic spooky boy flick than anything truly groundbreaking.

LIMITED RELEASE:

Diamantino

Diamantino – Official Trailerwww.youtube.com

A Portuguese-language, genre-bending political comedy that made waves at Cannes 2019 (ultimately taking home the Grand Prize during International Critics' Week), Diamantino looks absolutely absurd. The plot follows a disgraced soccer star who sets out on a journey to find a new purpose for his life. The movie seems to involve incredibly bizarre imagery, including futuristic technology, galactic landscapes, and puppy fever dreams. If you appreciate bizarre cinema and can find Diamantino playing near you, I'd highly recommend checking it out.

Isabelle

Isabelle | Official Trailer (HD) | Vertical Entertainmentwww.youtube.com

If you ever watched The OC and wondered what Adam Brody is doing now, here's your answer. Isabelle is one of those horror movies that seems designed solely to pad Netflix's Halloween offerings. We've seen the premise a bajillion times––a couple gets haunted by some generic ghost girl––and outside of Ringu, I don't think it's ever been done well. I don't know what audience this movie is geared towards, but if it happens to be you, just go watch Ringu again instead.