In 1992, before Hollywood studios were attuned to such things, Disney's animated "Aladdin" featured a narrator who sang about his Middle Eastern homeland, "It's barbaric, but hey, it's home!" Arab groups complained and Disney altered some lines in the song, but not that one. With its new, live-action "Aladdin," Disney finally relents: The offending word "barbaric" is now "chaotic."
And that, by and large, is the only thing in this "Aladdin" that can be called an improvement.
"Aladdin" is the latest in Disney's string of financially successful but artistically unnecessary live-action remakes of animated classics. Past titles, such as "The Jungle Book" and "Pete's Dragon" (both released in 2016) at least tried to reshape the material by striking a new tone or mood, but "Aladdin" does little but replace the original film's slender charms with loud, hollow spectacle. Its main selling point is the presence of a blue-skinned Will Smith, who replaces, but is no substitute for, the late Robin Williams as the Genie.
