ALAD'2
Theatrical release : October 3, 2018
Duration : 1h38
Director : Lionel Steketee
Main actors : Kev Adams, Jamel Debbouze, Vanessa Guide
Synopsis : After freeing Baghdad from the grip of its terrible Vizier, Aladdin is bored at the palace and still has not decided to propose to the princess. But a terrible dictator, Shah Zaman, invites himself to the Palace and announces that he has come to take the city and marry the Princess. Aladdin has no choice but to flee the Palace... He will try to recover his former Genie and return in force to free the city and recover his bride.
It was when leaving the theaters before the end credits began that I wondered in which direction French comedy was going... Because this film is truly a one-man show in which we have the impression that the dialogues were entrusted to actors like Jamel Debouzze or even Kev Adams who are freewheeling, coming out with jokes that constantly take us out of the film.
An example among others: Eric Judor brings it back in the film by explaining to us in a scene that if his magic lamp is so easy to heat given the space, it is because EDF granted him reductions on prices to thank him for having made advertisements for the company... This is the typical type of dialogue that we find in the film, taking us completely out of the context of the film and waking us up from a nightmare that the we watch on the big screen.
And some like these, there are some great ones, like at the beginning of the film where Kev Adams' character is trying to find the secret word to open the secret room, and suddenly he remembers that it's probably Instagram . The film could have taken place in any era and it would have been the same. Speaking of time, the first third of the film is not bad in this sense: We go from the time of the discovery of the Americas (Gérard Depardieu reprising his role as Christopher Columbus), to the time of the musketeers . There is even a scene where Judor and Adams teleport into the middle of an African tribe and who do we see appear? Frédéric Lopez as he appears in his show “Rendez-vous en terre stranger”…. Winks like meta humor but very heavy. Ahhhh I forgot: the two famous rappers Big Flo and Oli with their caps screwed on their heads... this film therefore has no respect for its time
The plot of the film is based on a metro ticket, and all around you have humor, humor that only makes kids between 5 and 10 years old laugh...well let's go up to 14-15 years old for Kev Adams fans . Kev Adams who is not at his first failed attempt since we remember the controversy over “cool rape” in Gangsterdam…
There is something that intrigues me...how can we take spectators for idiots like that? How can people pay sometimes high prices (although in France only people pay full price for their cinema tickets) to see such a bad film? certainly not for the story but I think more because their favorite actor is in the film. But what a catastrophe for this young generation of spectators to see films that do not respect their intelligence….
When I went to see the first one in preview, we had invested a lot in filming locations and special effects which, let's admit, are sorely lacking in French cinema for the general public. So I told myself that there was hope of seeing a good comedy there. With hindsight and the preview atmosphere has subsided, this first film about Aladdin remains average with a very French humor if I did not take the film at the first level but at the 2nd or even 3rd degree.
Nothing justifies such offbeat humor here. But we can't be surprised when we see that it's the same director who shot a film that I didn't even go to see: The New Adventures of Cinderella. The latter whose trailer I found distressing due to its overly offbeat humor which pushes “the Aladdin saga” into mediocrity.
Don't go see this film, it's two hours wasted, two hours wasted and around 7 euros that you could have invested in a good pizza, because yes the film is not even worth a pizza
Well…in the meantime, I’m going to go see what’s good about Alad2 tonight….
PS: that one was easy…
