Aladdin and the King of Thieves (1996)

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General		Extras
Category	Animation	None
Rating
Year Of Production	1996
Running Time	78:12
RSDL / Flipper	No/No	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Programme
Region Coding	2,4	Directed By	Tad Stones
Studio Distributor	Disney Warner Home Video	Starring	Robin Williams Scott Weinger Linda Larkin Val Bettin John Rhys-Davies
Case	Amaray-Opaque
RPI	$36.95	Music	Carl Johnson Mark Watters

Video		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	Full Frame	English Dolby Digital 5.1 (384Kb/s) French Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s) Italian Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s) Dutch Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s) Polish Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s) Czech Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s) Hungarian Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s) Hebrew Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s)
Widescreen Aspect Ratio	None
16x9 Enhancement	No
Video Format	576i (PAL)
Original Aspect Ratio	1.33:1	Miscellaneous
Jacket Pictures	No
Subtitles	English Greek English for the Hearing Impaired	Smoking	No
		Annoying Product Placement	No
		Action In or After Credits	No

    The final instalment sees the nuptials of Aladdin (Scott Weinger) and Princess Jasmine (Linda Larkin) interrupted by the arrival of Cassim, The King of Thieves (John Rhys-Davies) and his bunch of Forty Thieves in Agrabah. In search of The Oracle, they almost succeed in gaining the power of this treasure before the intervention of The Genie and Aladdin. The Oracle knows all that has been and all that will be and will answer one question for each person who asks. Cassim wants it in order to locate The Vanishing Island, where will be found the Hand of Midas (you know, all it touches turns to gold). Aladdin now uses The Oracle to discover who is father is - naturally it is Cassim - and heads off in search of a reunion (and rehabilitation). After the obligatory trials, the usual happy ending sees Aladdin and Jasmine married, with Cassim a reformed man of sorts.

    It has to be said that the last instalment of the trilogy does in no way rival the brilliance of the original instalment, Aladdin, although it is marginally better than The Return of Jafar (the second instalment). Had it not been for the return of Robin Williams, this would probably have sunk without a trace, for it is far too littered with gags that are anything but funny, and that detract significantly from the story itself in my view.

Video

    Presented in a full frame format (1.33:1), this is not 16x9 enhanced.

    The transfer is beautifully defined throughout, although the style of animation is not an especially sharp one. After a succession of poor VHS transfers that I could barely watch, it is great to finally see how good this video quality can be. There were no real problems with the focus at all during the film, although the odd pan shot was a little off-putting. There was no evidence of low level noise in the transfer.

    The colours come up gorgeously saturated and very vibrant, without being too oversaturated in general. There was the smallest hint of oversaturation of colours on the odd occasion, especially where there was a preponderance of blue or orange but this was never too distracting.

   There were no readily apparent MPEG artefacts nor did there appear to be any film-to-video artefacts. Film artefacts were also noticeably absent from the transfer.

Audio

    The dialogue was clear and easy to understand at all times.

    As usual there is the expected animation audio sync.

    The musical score by Carl Johnson and Mark Watters is not up to the standard of the original film, but is suitably evocative of the Middle East and provides nice support to the film. The songs are somewhat more contrived and really are not on a par with what we would expect from this source, which is renowned for Oscar winning songs in recent history.

    This is a reasonably detailed soundtrack, although the music comes through a little recessed so as not to detract from the dialogue. There is some nice detail at times in the rear channels but I felt that perhaps a little more could have been done here. The soundscape is a little forward but nonetheless is quite encompassing and creates a nice feel. The bass channel gets some very useful support work at times where it is necessary, like the elephant stampede at the wedding and the appearance of The Vanishing Island.

Menu

    A very nice video transfer.

    A nice audio transfer.

    Extras?????

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall