Aladdin (Disney Special Platinum Edition) (DVD)

If there was any doubt that Disney knows how to do Special Edition DVDs it stops here as not only does this movie look great, the new Disney Enhanced Home Theater Mix sounds absolutely amazing! Aladdin is easily my favorite Disney flick of all-time and while it comes close to Disney's Robin Hood, Oo-de-lally, this one wins out by a fraction and this DVD release has it all, making it Disney's crowning DVD achievement to date.

I don't think I need to go into detail about what this movie is about since if you haven't seen it you probably aren't reading this review. Plus, there is so much to talk about with this one I am going to try and touch on it all, and keep it short... so here goes.

Disc One...

Here you find the feature presentation with that new Disney Home Theater Mix I was telling you about, and trust me on this one, for you home theater fanatics, when they are flying through the Cave of Wonders on good ol' Carpet you can tell the difference.

On top of that, you get two separate commentaries, one with the filmmakers and another with the animators, but I would recommend baby steps on these since they do repeat a lot of what you will get on the second disc. Plus there is one more way to view the film that is a little better, and that is the Pop-Up text commentary.

Now, while this is not presented in some fancy way other than just text on the screen I have always preferred these options on animated films since they always seem to point out stuff that is more interesting than what the filmmakers are going to give me. After all, if you want to hear from them flip to the other disc.

The main attraction, besides the movie of course, on the first disc are the music videos including a new rendition of "A Whole New World" with Jessica "Daisy Duke" Simpson and her hubby Nick Lachey, plus a new version of a deleted song from the film "Proud of Your Boy" by American Idol Clay Aiken. If you don't love "A Whole New World" then just get out of here, and the Simpson/Lachey version is just as good as the original, but I don't anticipate watching this one again. As for the other song, it is just hard for me to stomach Clay Aiken altogether, but that is no reflection on the song he sings.

The other musical option you have is to skip straight to the musical scenes inside the movie of your choosing, plus you can watch the movie with the lyrics to the songs on or off, which is pretty cool since I still can't remember what some of them were.

On to disc two where you will find an almost 2 hour long featurette that bounces around from animation, to creation, to writing, to voices and so on. There are a few different ways to watch this one, but if you are like me the "Play All" option is the way to go, and while 2 hours is a long time for a featurette it seems studios are raising their game on these as of late considering I didn't want to turn this one off inside the first few minutes and was able to go through the whole thing.

Along with that you get a bunch of your usual Disney DVD games, which I will say the virtual Magic Carpet ride is better than some of the virtual games I have seen on other Disney discs, but these games are aimed at children so I can't really tell you how good they are or not.

Plus you will get a look inside the Genie's lamp, learn about what Genie did once he was freed plus play a wishing game.

The only complaint I have is probably one I can't even aim at Disney, which is that Robin Williams is basically not on this DVD except for in the final minutes of the 2 hour featurette and that is all archived footage. Seeing how Disney did a big roll-out for this DVD release I know Williams must have been contacted to participate and for him to sit it out sort of sucks.

Other than that this is just great, and I knew it would be great from the first minute I through it into the player and "Arabian Nights" came through the speakers. This special edition DVD is certainly one you must add to your collection if you are any kind of animation or Disney fan.