What you need to know before you see Aladdin in theaters

Okay, you need to know something from me in advance. First of all, that I am a big Disney fan, and secondly, that I was also a big Robin Williams fan. Or still am, actually. Add that up and you understand that I have watched the animated version of Aladdin more than a hundred times by now (I wish I were lying about this, but no). And I only encourage all those Disney remakes, but with Aladdin (and The Lion King, my other favorite) I did think for a moment: oh no, is this going to be okay? Robin Williams is just the Genie, how can anyone else do that? Let alone Will Smith. Genie’s gettin’ jiggy with it. Didn’t think so, no way.

Well, I was skeptical. But I also dare to admit my mistake and for now I’ll do that, because oh boy, the first clip has been released and I’m sold. Prince Ali, sung by The Fresh Prince, is on YouTube and he. Is. Fun. Is it at the level of Robin Williams? No, of course not. But it looks really cool and seems to match the animated original second for second. Hats off.

And of course we also need to talk about Dutch pride in Aladdin, namely Marwan Kenzari as Jafar. Unfortunately, there is (yet) no moving image of that, but as a small country we can be quite proud of that and I’m also very curious how he will portray Jafar. I found him quite funny in the 1992 version at times (or maybe that’s my childlike humor that has never completely disappeared). And also nice to know is that Aladdin himself was almost played by a Dutchman, namely by Achraf Koutet, whom you might know from Mocro Maffia. He played Elias there, or the DJ brother of Muis. According to him, he was even among the last two and was rejected because of his just-not-good-enough American accent.

We still have to wait a bit, until May 24 to be precise, before we can see this movie. But a few of the lucky ones were able to watch it at a premiere in the Grand Rex theater in France. And those reactions were fortunately mostly positive. According to them, there was a lot of humor in it and the acting performances were also particularly good. So far, so good. Not entirely unimportant: there seems to be a rapping Will Smith singing in the credits. Oh, yes indeed. Here he goes. So this is a story, all about how…