Aladdin 2: O Retorno de Jafar

Rule number one in movie viewing friends: never, ever expect a sequel to be better that the original. because it usually isn't. The Return of Jafar is no where near as good as Aladdin, but it is still generally good. This really wasn't even supposed to be a sequel. It was supposed to be the first five episodes of the animated series, thus explaining the change in animation. The story is fairly good and the movie has some good songs. And in defense of Dan Castellaneta, he does a good job as the Genie and sounds sort of like Robin Williams. Don't judge him just because of Williams' performance. It was not as good as Aladdin, but why would you expect it to be?

Whenever disney makes a sequel that went straight to dvd, I always ask one question when watching one, DISNEY, WHY DO YOU MAKE THESE? This movie in ten words is, what if we made the same movie again, but worse. The runtime is only 69 minutes, the genie is not voiced by Robin Williams anymore, etc, while this isn't quite as terrible as some of the others in this heap of Disney sequels, it's still bad.

"The Return of Jafar" isn't as good as "Aladdin" but, to be fair, it isn't that bad for a Disney sequel either. There are much worst Disney sequels than this, made after this.

"The Return of Jafar" continues the story of the original "Aladdin": now Aladdin and Jasmine are married and live together in the palace, the genie returns from his vacations, Iago escapes from Jafar and becomes a «good guy» and Jafar returns with the help of a new villain (a thief called Abis Mal).

Naturally that this movie isn't as good as the first one, like I said. Why? There are many reasons why. The story is more lame. The artwork looks more poor comparing to the first one (which is more refined and more according to Disney's standards). The humor isn't as funny and classic. The colorful imagination, creativity and magic of the first one are gone. The characters seem somehow to have lost their personality.

Speaking of the characters, let me start by Iago. He has the same general sarcasm and I like the idea that he becomes a «good guy», but let's be frank: he's way funnier in the first one. Jafar is now more annoying and not as humorous as in the first one. Aladdin, Jasmine and the Sultan seem to have lost some of their maturity. The Genie is still funny, but without the colorful imagination and brilliant sense of humor he's got on the first one. The whole movie in general doesn't hold a candle to the original, although it is still entertaining enough. Besides, there is no Robin Williams here, which is a deep lost. It also becomes tiring to see Jafar so many times as a Red Genie. The soundtrack itself is nowhere near as impressing and memorable as on the first one - in fact, none of the songs here really capture our attention and hearts.

Overall, this is not a bad movie. For kids it is just as recommendable and entertaining as the first one, but for older people the first one is, without a doubt, the best choice.

I think if you enjoy hearing Gilbert Gottfried's incessant screeching as a performer, as I genuinely do (no, really, for a character like Iago it woks!) then Return to Jafar will be a good effort. Very good, great? Maybe not. I don't even know how necessary it might have been, but as a little kid coming off of Aladdin, which was a triumph for Disney at the time, this was a good way to bridge between the first movie and the animated series that was to come for many years on the Disney channel. It picks up right where the first one left off and follows Iago on his journey from being an awful "I'm looking out for me" kind of stooge and into being, well, semi-heroic.

Of course not having Robin Williams as the Genie, and as a kid as soon as I heard it, it was something of a shock (only once though, during the Genie's first song, does he sound a lot like Homer Simpson). But he does a good enough job and makes it entertaining. I don't know what could have been improved on aside from, you know, the animation (it's not the Hollywood group, it was done overseas), or Williams but... for what it is, I like it. It may not be a strong recommendation, but it's more-so compared to the dirge of ridiculous direct-to-video garbage that Disney pumped out over the next two decades (including things like Bambi 2 and Beauty and the Beast Christmas specials). At least Aladdin, through this sequel and one more and the series, got to be its own thing in continuity and follow arcs and characters in decent timing for children of the period.

Following the huge success of Aladdin in 1992, Disney commissioned its television animation studio to create a show successor. When the creators of the series decided to make the pilot about Jafar seeking revenge on Aladdin and rule all of Agrabah, Disney chose to market the pilot as a direct to video sequel entitled The Return of Jafar. Released nearly 2 years after the first film, the sequel sold over $300 million on VHS sales alone and soon prompted a whole slew of straight to home video Disney sequels. That being said, it is today deemed one of the worst examples of such work, and for good reason too.

The film follows Jafar, now an all powerful genie, seeking vengeance towards Aladdin and his friends. At the same time, Iago turns against Jafar by means of going back to the palace, causing much turmoil towards the protagonists. With a premise like that, one would hope for a thoroughly engaging revenge story with the good and evil duking it out. Sadly, the biggest issue with Return of Jafar is how rushed and unfocused it is, as it would rather focus more on Iago trying to make amends with Aladdin and the gang than on Jafar plotting his master plan to rule all of Agrabah. It doesn't help that the person Jafar manipulates to help with his plan is a dreadfully annoying dimwitted thief Abis Mal whose only purpose is to get back at Aladdin for foiling his criminal activities. As a result, the story feels too fast paced for its own good in getting from plot point to plot point that the only amount of substance we get is the conflicting relation between Aladdin and Iago. At merely an hour runtime, Gilbert Gottfried has too much material for his own good that Iago is worth groaning at rather than rooting for.

Speaking of Gottfried, while the cast from the original do their best with the subpar material they have, the inclusion of Jason Alexander as Abis Mal is way too distracting. While Alexander can be very funny in the right role, Abis Mal comes off more as George Costanza in an Arabian thief disguise rather than a fully realized character, sadly aided by too much dialogue for the character's tolerance. It's sad when Dan Castellaneta doing the Genie is far more likable in his role than Alexander is as a villain, since at least there are times when he does sound close to matching Williams' energy. Even the singing talents of Liz Callaway and Brad Kane feel completely wasted on insipid musical numbers that feel more at place in a Saturday morning adventure series than a Disney sequel. It's bad enough that poor Gilbert has two songs to handle on his own, the movie doesn't need to shoehorn more forgettable material on sheer talent. Sometimes the cast of a feature can save a fairly weak feature with their talents, but when they fall short, it's not really their fault as much as the work itself.

As for the film being intended for television from the start, it goes without saying that the animation quality in Return of Jafar is lower than that of the first film. It's hard to be critical of the visual work when a whole different studio is working on a followup to a feature like Aladdin, especially when the people at Disney Animation Australia and Japan had done some fantastic work in later endeavors. Unfortunately, the difference in art direction can be sighted from the background art looking more like oddly painted backdrops than a full fledged Arabian landscape. Seeing the characters drawn hastily for efficient production is probably the worst offender as it shows just how it is to draw a Disney character, let alone get them to move. While the layouts are definitely ambitious enough, they're sadly undermined by grotesquely flat color palettes. Arguably, the biggest highlight in the animation comes from the effects department, as the broad range of lights and power create a lot of tension in the film's climax. Otherwise, we're left with a feature that should've stayed on television instead of VHS.

As a followup to Aladdin and as the first direct to video Disney sequel, The Return of Jafar pales in comparison in every single regard. While the cast and crew did their best with the rushed schedule and subpar material they had, the result is nothing more than Disney shamelessly cashing in on the success of one of their most popular films at the time without much care for who would see the film or not. Unless you're a die hard Aladdin fan or curious to get through all those weird Disney sequels of back then, you're better off pretending this never happened and hope that Jafar remained in the cave of wonders.