Ever since seeing Aladdin for the first time I wanted to see this movie. Aladdin was (in my opinion) one of the better Disney movies, and Jafar was one of the best villains. I was hoping something would come of his imprisonment, and very much wanted to like this movie.<br /><br />I tried, but it just didn't happen. I didn't like it.<br /><br />I acknowledge that it was direct-to-video. Yes, the sound was a pale imitation of the movie soundtrack and seemed to consist of a handful of themes repeated endlessly; yes, the animation was choppy and distracting, and the coloring was nothing approaching the richness of the original. But I wasn't expecting something made for video to be as good as a theater release, and if the richness of the plot and characters of this movie had even approached the original film, I would've been satisfied.<br /><br />They didn't. The returning characters have been reduced to cardboard cutouts of their original selves, with little charisma or energy (with the exception of Iago, who was still as amusing as ever.) The new characters are just as bland. The script is stilted, and the voice actors overact half the time and underact the other half. This baffles me, since most of them seem to be returning from the original movie, and the acting from that was much better. (And no, Dan Castellaneta isn't Robin Williams. I didn't expect him to be Robin Williams. If you look at his performance without comparing it to Robin William's performance, well, he does just fine.)<br /><br />The plot, to avoid spoilers, was predictable and full of continuity errors. I honestly think that a villain like Jafar could've thought of a better evil plan, and without involving inept "helpers."<br /><br />If I had to pick one word to describe this movie it would be mediocre. And it can't even be entirely blamed on its direct-to-video status, since the other Aladdin sequel was much better. It's as if someone just gave up on this one and slapped something together to meet a deadline.<br /><br />How unfortunate.