Adam Green's Aladdin

From the love-it-or-hate-it school of filmmaking comes Adam Green’s Aladdin, a modern retelling of the classic fantasy tale. Green stars as Aladdin, a recording artist who comes upon a lamp containing a genie with a magical 3D printer. Whatever wish Aladdin makes the genie Mustafa’s command, as he prints money and other goods to help him in his quest to woo Princess Barbara (Bip Ling).

The cast is populated with some familiar faces, like Alia Shawkat (who also co-produced) as Emily, Aladdin’s sister, and Natasha Lyonne as Aladdin’s mother. Macaulay Culkin plays Ralph, who’s something between a political revolutionary and a cult leader. Zoë Kravitz cameos as a miner. There are also a number of fellow musicians in the cast like Jack Dishel, who plays the evil sultan who suffers from extreme penis envy. There’s also Parker Kindred, Har Mar Superstar, Devendra Banhart, etc., etc., on into infinity.

When I was in the tenth grade, my English class was given a project that required a visual element to it. Our teacher said we could paint a picture, we could make a puppet or hell, you could even make a movie. I can’t remember what I did for this project, but I do remember that a group of popular kids got together and they made a movie. I had to suffer through 20 minutes of on-screen giggling in an incoherent mess, but at least it was an hour shorter than Adam Green’s Aladdin.

Adam Green’s Aladdin has a convenient cloak of irony to hide behind. If it’s not funny, that’s because it’s too cool to be funny. If it doesn’t make any damned sense, that’s because it was never meant to subscribe to your uptight norms of narrative. And if it’s just plain boring, well, that’s because catering to an audience who craves excitement is to kowtow to the lowest common denominator. This film has no interest in entertaining, enlightening or being anything other than a hipper-than-thou cultural artifact that sneers in disdain at anyone unlucky enough to happen upon it.

Near the end of Adam Green’s Aladdin, just when I was beginning to wonder, “What’s the point in all this? Why does this movie even EXIST? What is it trying to SAY?” it threw together some half-assed “materialism is bad” moral. As Mustafa’s magical 3D printer falls into the wrong hands and it corrupts those who have access to all the material goods they could want, Emily compares it to drinking martinis—one is enough, two is too much and three is never enough. Given that the film was crowdfunded through kickstarter and the vast majority of cast/crew did not get paid and the budget went primarily toward financing its sets, I get a big kick out of this. I love it when rich artists, who can afford to work for free, feel qualified to talk about the greed that befalls sudden, unexpected riches.

It's not that Adam Green’s Aladdin is bad (it is), it’s that it has no sincerity behind it. At least a film like The Room was free of ironic detachment. Tommy Wiseau had something to say and he said it, albeit clumsily and ineptly, but I respect an artist and a voice that bears their soul to an audience. I feel nothing for a parade of images that reflect arrogant indifference.

Vital Disc Stats: The Blu-ray
Adam Green’s Aladdin rides a magic carpet made of cardboard and floats onto Blu-ray, courtesy of Cartuna and Vinegar Syndrome. The film and special features are printed onto a single disc housed in a standard case. The inside of the case contains art printed on the reverse side of the cover art. There is also a 32-page booklet containing artwork from the movie.

I loved the homemade visual aesthetic of Adam Green’s Aladdin, which is possibly why I wished so dearly that a better movie, or even an interested one, existed instead to serve is cartoony style. Sets and props are fashioned from construction paper, papier-mâché and cardboard. Certain post-production visual effects rendered digitally are integrated seamlessly to maintain the same homemade look and feel of its practical effects and sets. Adam Green’s Aladdin looks like the doodles from someone’s notebook were struck by lightning and came to life, in all their unpolished glory.

The cinematography itself isn’t complex, because I don’t think a single shadow exists in this film, and everything has the same kind of even, overly bright lighting, but it serves the picture well. For all my complaints, visual appeal is not among them. I think Adam Green’s Aladdin a gorgeous movie and I admired much of the seemingly endless inventiveness of its design. The style alone couldn’t save this movie, sadly.

As Adam Green is also a musician, he scored his film with song after song. Some songs are better than others, but the 5.1 sound mix, encoded in DTS-HD MA, has plenty of life in it. Sound effects are mainly relegated to the front of the soundstage, while music encompasses the front and the rear. Since 99% the movie exists on a cartoony set (with the exception of one shot, I believe, that was filmed outside for real), there isn’t much in the way of ambient effects. Still, the mix is layered well, with dialogue always coming in clearly, effects clear without being overpowering, and a musical score that envelopes the soundstage.

Fans will have plenty of supplemental features to watch. There is a making-of with interviews with the cast and crew about the film’s production history and what it’s like to work with Adam Green. There are also outtakes, trailers and a Q&A.

• Behind The Scenes Documentary (HD 15:15)
• Cut Lines and Outtakes Reel (HD 5:01)
• Me From Far Away Music Video (HD 2:54)
• Nature of the Clown Music Video (HD 2:48)
• Never Lift a Finger Music Video (HD 2:33)
• Köln Q&A (HD 7:01)
• Kickstarter Promo #1 (Taking A Leak In Amsterdam) (HD 1:16) 
• Kickstarter Promo #2 (HD 0:52)
• Trailers

While the visual appeal of Adam Green’s Aladdin is something like Meow Wolf meets Sin City, at a mere hour and twenty minutes, the film feels like a lifetime. It’s a cynical production that satirizes government corruption, technology, and capitalism with sardonic bluntness. Its true crime is a lack of earnestness, existing only as a showcase for how clever its production design is. Still, in terms of A/V stats, Cartuna has delivered, it looks and sounds fantastic. With an in-depth listing of special features, Adam Green’s Aladdin is Worth a Look for those who think this might be up their alley.