Aladdin Reviews- Page 3

[Playbilly]

Posted: 11/22/13 at 5:23pm

I saw Jacobs in ZORRO. He's got talent and charisma in spades. He plays young on stage.

[Wishing Only Wounds]

Posted: 11/22/13 at 6:14pm

I had a feeling this was destined to be doomed after Disney made the same mistake of closing Mary Poppins, as they did with Beauty and The Beast.

[disneybroadwayfan22]

Posted: 11/22/13 at 6:16pm

^Me too

[AlehoSmith]

Posted: 11/22/13 at 6:39pm

Why did they close MP it sounds so stupid it was a great show

[Wildcard]

Posted: 11/22/13 at 6:56pm

Aladdin is a lot better than The Little Mermaid musical was. It could use further adjustments though. Even MP had its detractors.

[CATSNYrevival]

Posted: 11/22/13 at 7:12pm

I remember reading an article about Poppins and one of the producers said that it closed while it was still making money, but they did that because the shows grosses were going down and it was projected not to continue making money for much longer. They didn't close it just to make room for Aladdin. Poppins wasn't going to be profitable for much longer so they closed before the bleeding started.

[Jonwo]

Posted: 11/22/13 at 9:52pm

The climax definetly needs to be fixed and I think perhaps They need to add in a new song for Jasmine, maybe replace Call Me a Princess reprise with To be Free or something along that lines.

[ACL2006]

Posted: 11/23/13 at 2:37am

Poppins could have ran for at least another year.

[Scarlet Leigh]

Posted: 11/23/13 at 2:47am

I was just about to ask what Jonwo basically said... to those that have seen it... WOULD putting in "To Be Free" for Jasmine be enough to balance her out? Or is her character so messed up it would take more then that at this point to save her?

[lambchop2]

Posted: 11/23/13 at 3:33am

If they were to introduce To Be Free (I really don't think they will, because it seems like they're trying to keep this separate from the theme park show as much as they can) it would probably have to come right either right before or right after Call Me a Princess to make sense, unless they radically alter the lyrics. But since Aladdin just sang a fun introduction number followed by an introspective, character-motivation ballad, it might drag.

Realistically, they might be able to extend the Call Me a Princess reprise a verse or two? Or add in a few more lines about her worries regarding becoming a queen?

I guess I'm just not seeing what some critics are apparently seeing with Jasmine's role in this production... Stage Jasmine got just as much 'screen' time as her film counterpart--actually no, she had more, including a scene with her ladies, additional time with Aladdin, more dialogue with her father, Call Me a Princess + its reprise, and the A Million Miles Away duet. If anything, she's more fleshed out than she was in the film! Updated On: 11/23/13 at 03:33 AM

[bwayrose7]

Posted: 11/23/13 at 10:40am

I do hope they're able to fix the show before opening on Broadway. I grew up in the Disney Renaissance with Aladdin and all its contemporaries, so it makes me incredibly sad to think that this show will be disappointing.

[chinto1984]

Posted: 11/23/13 at 12:09pm

To Be Free is a great song. The producers are stupid if they are trying to keep it far as possible from the theme park show. It seems that the theme park show is better and worth its ticket price.

[RippedMan]

Posted: 11/23/13 at 12:46pm

They've got a lot of work to do before Feb. and I'm sure they won't do it. Sounds like they need to restructure, re-design, re-cast, re-choreograph, etc.

I don't think Disney so much cares for the reviews, they just want it to be a hit, and I think it will sell well in NYC at least for the first couple years. People will go because of the Disney brand.

Mary Poppins was great, but even that show, I didn't feel like Mary Poppins had much to do. Maybe it was the actress I saw, but I felt like she was always in the background. But it was a gorgeous show.

[ACL2006]

Posted: 11/23/13 at 1:25pm

Tarzan & Mermaid were both flops. Disney's had success with Lion King, Beauty & the Beast, Newsies, Aida & Poppins. Disney won't look good with 5 hits & 3 flops.

[Scarywarhol]

Posted: 11/23/13 at 1:52pm

And Peter/Starcatcher was a success by its measure, if we want to count that. Though Disney Theatricals played down its involvement so that it would be perceived as more legit/artsy/independent.

[jonahke]

Posted: 11/23/13 at 2:26pm

But Tarzan was/is a huge succes in Holland and Germany

[disneybroadwayfan22]

Posted: 11/23/13 at 3:02pm

Aladdin just got a rave and compares it to TLK.
Theatre review: Forget the Lion, this Aladdin is king of the stage

[Scarywarhol]

Posted: 11/23/13 at 3:20pm

Thinking of Starcatcher makes me imagine what a good match for this material Rick Elice would have been. They should bring him in to punch up the book!

[bwayphreak234]

Posted: 11/23/13 at 11:51pm

It sounds like what they have a California Adventure is a hell of a lot better than what they are going to be bringing through the Lincoln tunnel in a couple months. Disney has just really taken a turn to all style and no substance, and it's not working.
Mary Poppins, Aida, and Beauty and the Beast are the only Disney on Broadway shows I enjoyed. Lion King, Tarzan, and Little Mermaid are all clunkers of epic proportions IMO.

[EricMontreal22]

Posted: 11/24/13 at 12:06am

Oh dear, at that National Post review. And really, what "movie song" is Diamond in the Rough?

[disneybroadwayfan22]

Posted: 11/24/13 at 12:09am

bwaypheak, what about newsies?

[veronicamae]

Posted: 11/24/13 at 11:09pm

this may be a dumb question but...why change anything from the movie they're drawing from? why not just....take the dialogue and sequence of scenes from the movie and do that?

[CATSNYrevival]

Posted: 11/24/13 at 11:32pm

^There are a lot of reasons why they can't just put the movie on stage. The reviewers would almost certainly criticize the show more if they just gave the cast the movie screenplay and staged that. I think they took on too much by trying to combine elements of what the film became with the original road show concept in addition to additional elements for the stage adaptation. They're trying to combine three different concepts and make it cohesive and that would be a challenge for even the most seasoned book writer.

[Leonardo2]

Posted: 11/25/13 at 5:12am

I saw the show on opening night and to say I was disappointed is an understatement. One word I'd use to describe it is "cheap" - cheap design, cheap jokes. The only 'wow' moment was when the carpet was revealed but I found even that scene was completely ruined when they brought in the ensemble for extra (cheap)effects. It could have been a beautiful, intimate scene but they effed it up.

The book needs to be burned. Earlier posts were completely right - the boy band trio was likeable but WAY over used to the point where the leads don't seem to be leads. Keep them in the show as friends of Aladdin, but get rid of them as narrators. Also get rid of all of the self-aware, 'we're in a musical' jokes. On the fence about the direction they took with Genie. You can't out-do (or even replicate) Robin Williams - we all know that - so they just gave him a lot gay jokes and references and made him flamboyant. He worked his ass off to the point he barely made it through his first number, and he was entertaining but there's nothing about the material he was given that I didn't find had been done before in other shows. The extended dance numbers got old real fast.

The biggest annoyance for me is that EVERYONE was trying to be funny ALL THE TIME. To the point where the show lost it's heart. The film had a ton of heart but it was sacrificed in favor of cheap joke after cheap joke. It was like they were competing to be the funniest character. The addition of a song and reprise for Aladdin to sing to his dead mother didn't make up for it.

Jasmine's character definitely needs to be rounded out. Her first song I know was meant to be funny, satirical, but given that she has little else to do in the show but complain makes the song and the character miss the mark entirely.

The climax was absolutely underwhelming. Zero thought seemed to have been put into it other than to wrap it up quickly.

Design-wise was a big missed opportunity. They could have gone in the direction of Beauty and the Beast and gone for some semblance of fantasy-realism but instead they just seemed to try to put a cartoon on stage - bright colours and flat surfaces. It looked like something staged at a low-budget summer-stock theatre most of the time.

Overall I wept over the wasted potential.

By the way, does anyone know what the technical issue was on opening night? 2 stage hands were on stage during most of 'Friend Like Me'.

[wicked4l]

Posted: 12/1/13 at 8:30pm

Just got back to the states from Toronto where I caught the matinee of Aladdin. I purposely stayed completely away from these message boards and didn't read one official review. Aladdin is one of my favorite Disney movies of all time and I have always loved the character because he is one of the only Disney characters I looked like as a kid. I went up to Toronto just to see this production and had excellent seats second row center mezzanine. I could not have been any more disappointed, really a let down. I've previously seen just about all of Disney's theatre pieces in NYC and this just didn't do it for me.

I'll start with a positive, the costumes are STUNNING. The colors are beautiful and bright and they really feel like a Disney film right in front of your eyes. The set is also pretty beautiful for the most part, but there are some pieces that look extremely cheap and tacky. I did not like "A Whole New World" at all, they are sitting on this weird carpet that has lights IN it so they look like they're on a space ship. Then out come some weird LED stars that looked like a cheap movie scene, then people holding lights on sticks like from Mary Poppins come out and dance around, THEN people holding rainbow planets come out and they dance too. The vocals over all were fantastic, Alan Menken is just a genius and MOST of the score is really catchy, except for that cheap Disney medley during "Friend Like Me." Genie sings Part of Your World, Go The Distance, Under The Sea, Colors of the Wind, and another piece during "Friend Like Me." It was random and just seemed like a poorly played gimmick for the tourists.

For the actors, Adam Jacobs as Aladdin is really wonderful. Great vocals, wonderful mannerisms, and I think he has the perfect charm for the character. Courtney Reed is not the best, but because she was so wonderful in In The Heights I'm guessing it was just the jumbled book that makes her look bad. As a poster before said, "Call Me A Princess" is not the best first impression of a such a "strong female character." The rest of the principles are pretty great as well. I really don't know how I feel about the 3 friends, they just seemed fake to me. Like they were just thrown in to make sure the audience knew what was going on, we're not that stupid...

I would not pay $130 to see this version again. I much prefer the theme park version, having caught that live several times. I seriously hope they re-work this before NYC.