THE RETURN OF JAFAR (1994)
Aladdin 2: The Return of Jafar
*½/**** Image B+ Sound B Extras C
written by Kevin Campbell and Mirith J.S. Colao & Bill Motz & Steve Roberts & Dev Ross & Bob Roth & Jan Strnad & Brian Swenlin
directed by Toby Shelton, Tad Stones, Alan Zaslove
ALADDIN AND THE KING OF THIEVES (1996)
*/**** Image B Sound B+ Extras C
screenplay by Mark McCorkle & Bob Schooley
directed by Tad Stones
by Travis Mackenzie Hoover About the only reason for Disney to send out their direct-to-video product to be reviewed is to accumulate free advertising. They know that no sensible critic will tolerate anything so obviously thrown together as a cash grab, just as they know that no reader of critics will willingly sign up to watch them; instead, the assumption is that said readers will have kids, and that the review will act as one more reminder (in concert with the saturation ad campaigns in print and on television) that those kids are undiscerning and will probably want the discs bad. So here's my link in the chain of avarice: two age-old attempts to cash in on Disney's Random Ethnic Stereotype Generator are back on the market, and if your children are lacking in aesthetic sense (they are), these might be right up their alley. Just make sure you bite down on a leather strap as you watch them with your goggle-eyed rugrat, and take heart in the knowledge that someone on the World Wide Web knows your pain.
The Return of Jafar is one of Disney's earliest attempts at Straight-to-Video Diminishing Returns, coming hot on the heels of their megahit featuring a giant blue Robin Williams. Williams, alas, does not return in the role of the Genie (Dan "Homer Simpson" Castellaneta picks up his torch), but that's the least of your worries, as the plot sidelines his character in favour of…the parrot. Yes, Gilbert Gottfried's petulant Iago has broken free from the lamp-bound genie Jafar (voice of Jonathan Freeman) and wants to make good with that Aladdin chap. After inadvertently saving the heroic lad from a thief named Abis-mal (seriously), Iago convinces him to bring his feathered countenance into the royal fold, much to the skepticism of the rest of the palace. Of course, Jafar breaks free and enlists the silly bird to help him fake out Aladdin, leaving Iago with a terrible moral dilemma: nice bird on the side of good, or comfortable role as stooge for nasty Jafar?
It's Disney, it's for kids–you can draw your own map to where the above leads. Dating back to the mid-Nineties, when low budgets and Shannon Tweed dominated the dtv market, the program has obviously been demoted from "we want it good" to "we want it sometime before lunch." Thus it features sub-Saturday-morning-quality art of washed-out colours and barely-recognizable character drawings that very definitely contradict the house style. (It's not a movie, it's a flipbook of randomly-chosen fan art by nine-year-olds.) And without the visual élan that could render the non-story tolerable, you're trapped on the train of commerce with the lunatics of apathy and greed.
After the studio apologized to Robin Williams with a Picasso painting for failing to honour an agreement to not trade on his name in Aladdin promotions, Williams volunteered to re-record Castellaneta's dialogue for Aladdin and the King of Thieves. While you'd think this dose of star power would kick things up a notch, the movie is bad for the same reasons as The Return of Jafar multiplied by the power of ten. Here, Aladdin discovers that his father (John Rhys-Davies) heads the titular bandits when they try to gatecrash Aladdin's wedding; another feeble moral dilemma emerges, since Aladdin must choose between daddy/lost identity/crime and Jasmine/new identity/legality. There's a lame Raiders of the Lost Ark search for something called Midas' Hand complicated by Poppy's vacillating and the opportunities this creates for a generic muscle-bound thief (Jerry Orbach!) to wrest his title of Thiefmaster.
At least The Return of Jafar was vaguely recognizable as Disney musical-comedy. This is more like "Thundarr the Barbarian" sans quality control–it's not even up to Hanna-Barbera standards, much less Uncle Walt's. The colours are pallid and unpleasing, the character drawing is like something from the pen of Napoleon Dynamite, and the lame adventure plot scuttles the irresistibly infantilizing comfort that is the Mouse House's only stock-in-trade. All that's identifiable as an indigenous artifact is the jesting of the re-Williamsized Genie character–which, although the actor is loaded for bear with atrocious puns and impersonations, is just not enough. A character like this needs to be seen to be zany and exuberant as well as heard; the Genie on offer is not the shapeshifting extravaganza of the original, but rather a terrified air band participant lip-synching to Aerosmith and praying for the curtain to fall. I hope Williams enjoyed his Picasso; I just wish I got one for watching Aladdin and the King of Thieves.
The gulf in quality stretches from source to mastering: these Aladdin discs look pretty sad. The Return of Jafar's full-frame presentation is the better of the two early rip jobs in that it's satisfactorily clear whilst reproducing the dingy palette and Crayola-black outlines. The worst that can be said is that it's impossible to tell if the transfer or the animation is to blame for the film's woefully muted palette. The Dolby 5.1 soundstage doesn't have much to work with, trapped as the music and effects are in the front mains with no substantial sparkle or sharpness to the audio besides. Aladdin and the King of Thieves looks even worse: its anamorphic image–matted to around 1.78:1 (no matter that the keepcase says fullscreen)–is fuzzy and thin and like wallpaper in a psychotic nanny's nursery. Though its Dolby 5.1 track gets the bass rolling for a climactic struggle, it's similarly quite limited, if slightly sharper than that of Jafar. Extras break down as follows:
THE RETURN OF JAFAR
Wish At Your Own Risk
Three wishes are a dangerous thing, apparently, as Jafar tries to lure you into making dumb wishes, only to surprise you with the negative results. "A different game every time!" enthuses the cover art; for extended periods, I wished it was backgammon.
DisneyPedia: Wishes Around the World!
Your rugrat can select various trinkets to see where in the world they grant wishes, accompanied by commentary from Aladdin, Jafar, and Iago. Guaranteed to have you shaking your fist in frustration at the obvious talismanic identities.
Also included: a menu of the film's songs, and trailers for The Incredibles, Bambi: Special Edition, Disney Princess, and Growing Up with Winnie the Pooh.
ALADDIN AND THE KING OF THIEVES
Bag the Bad Guy Game
With your cursor, search for the location of hiding thieves so that you can find the prize. Unfortunately, you have to put up with the encouragements/insults that result from your mistaken guesses, which by the tenth time you hear them have sucked all the pleasure out of the game.
Loot in the Lair Challenge
A far more challenging game in which you search for wedding gifts in various rooms: find a gift and keep it; find a hiding thief and search again. It's better than most remote-control games, but it wears out its welcome in due time.
Behind the Microphone (5 mins.)
A brief whisk through the recording process featuring cast members Robin Williams, Jerry Orbach, John Rhys-Davies, Gilbert Gottfried, and others. Everybody just loves the process, surprise surprise.
A song menu and Jafar's trailer selection rounds out the package.
61/81 minutes; G; 1.33:1/1.78:1 (16×9-enhanced); English DD 5.1, French Dolby Surround, Spanish Dolby Surround; CC; English, French, Spanish subtitles; 2 DVD-9s; Region One; Disney
