Aladin

A terrible waste of a terrific opportunity. Hugely disappointing!

Aladin starts with a bang, with the initial portions holding a lot of promise. But no sooner does the genie appears, he breaks into a song and you realize that Aladin is no different from those mundane films churned out week after week.

In accordance with a prominent line from the film “ Buri aadat badal daalo, Aladin ko maar daalo ”, director Sujoy Ghosh kinda kills the magic of the legendary fairy tale character in his contemporary adaptation of the Arabian Nights account. Certainly the inspiration is interesting but the execution tends to become formulaic.

Aladin promises the moon, but what you get is a mere flicker. This fantasy had the trappings to transport you to fantasyland, but... Seriously, Sujoy could've run his imagination wild and come up with a film that would've made the child in you jump, scream and clap with glee. But 15/20 minutes into the film and you realize that Aladin is merely a visual spectacle. A film that lacks soul!

Sujoy Ghosh's screenplay is bad, to put it bluntly. Given the kind of stars and budget at his disposal, the director should've come up with a slick entertainer, but Aladin comes across as a feeble clone of a poor Hollywood film. Like his last outing Home Delivery, this one too is high on gloss, but low on content.

Sadly, Aladin only slides downwards after this point. Sure, there're some interesting moments, but you can actually count those sequences. The problem is not with the story, but the screenplay (also penned by Sujoy Ghosh). It rests on absurdities. Okay, one expects absurdities in a fantasy, you can be pardoned for it, but at least they should have the power to keep you hooked. In this case, they don't!

The visual effects are excellent at places, but tacky at times. Vishal-Shekhar's music is strictly okay. However, too many songs in the initial reels act as roadblocks. The cinematography is top notch. Sabu Cyril’s art direction gives a fantasy feel to the hill-station town.

Aladin belongs to Riteish, who's easy on the eyes. The best part is, he looks the character and enacts it without going overboard. He's at his natural best here. Surprisingly, Amitabh Bachchan is over the top this time, which puts you off after a point. Sanjay Dutt has two standard expressions from start to end. Jacqueline Fernandez gets no scope, but she looks gorgeous nonetheless.

Ratna Pathak Shah is wasted. Ditto for Victor Banerjee. And what is a wonderful actor like Mita Vashisht doing in this film? Saahil Khan and Arif Zakaria are okay.

Aladin

• And the Mystery of the lamp.

Aladin

• Director 'Sujoy Gosh' was intending to make another film with 'Amitabh Bachchan' titled Boriwali. Amitabh felt it was too early for the director to take such an intense script. Then Sujoy suggested Aladin which was finally developed.
• Amitabh Bachchan used his own wardrobe for a groovy track alongside Ritesh Deshmukh rather than using production costumes.
• Sameera Reddy walked out of the project as she felt her role didn't hold much substance as narrated in the script and was replaced.
• Whilst shooting Amitabh Bachchan injured his hand wrist, Amitabh ignored the incident and resumed his shooting, rather than canceling his shooting.
• Due to Sanjay Dutt going in prison, rumor was spread that John Abraham would replace his role and re-shoot his scenes too.
• Ayesha Takia was associated with the project in the initial production phase.
• The film Aladin took 4 years to complete.
• The first day of Aladin shooting was 21 Oct 2007.
• Abhishek Bachchan was considered for the role of Aladin, Amitabh suggested that the Aladin creators take another actor as he is doing a few projects with Abhishek together.
• The movies original producers were Ramesh Sippy and Rohan Sippy of Sippy films. They backed out of the project due to extraordinary budget and doubt of a fairly new director with one flop behind him: Home Delivery: Aapko... Ghar Tak (2005). Director 'Sujoy Gosh' was intending to produce the film Aladin himself but was unable to generate the money, hence Eros stepped in and produced the film Aladin.