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April 20, 2000 Miniseries mogul Robert Halmi Sr., who turned NBC's Noah's Ark into a Carnival cruise, has regained his magic touch with ABC's Arabian Nights. Based on A Thousand and One Nights, this two-part miniseries captures the mystical flavor surrounding the tales of genies, demons, sultans and thieves that have enthralled readers for generations. It is without a doubt producer Halmi's finest effort since Gulliver's Travels (1996). The two genies largely responsible for this delightful magic-carpet ride are screenwriter Peter Barnes and director Steve Barron, the creative team behind Halmi's Merlin (1998). Barnes' abbreviated adaptation — only five of the 58 tales are told here — is remarkably faithful to the original text right down to setting the story of Aladdin in China. (Most filmed versions erroneously take place in Arabia.) As in the book, newlywed Sultana Scheherazade (Mili Avital) tells the stories to her insane husband, Sultan Schahriar (Dougray Scott), who has ordered his bride killed the morning after their wedding night. In the hopes of postponing her execution, and winning the sultan's love, Scheherazade plans to keep her husband entertained each night with stories so fascinating that he will keep her alive just to hear them. Director Barron milks this life-or-death pillow talk for all it's worth. And the convincing performances by Avital and Scott are way beyond the routine acting found in earlier A Thousand and One Nights films such as The Thief of Bagdad (1940). Scheherazade gets some coaching from the town storyteller (Alan Bates). His advice is twofold: Hook your audience at the beginning and leave them in suspense. Screenwriter Barnes follows this advice as well. He grabs viewers with a spectacular opening image: A giant demon holds a dancing girl in the palm of his hand in a scene taken from the introduction of A Thousand and One Nights. The storyteller's second piece of advice provides a clever way to end night one: The sultan is about to have the sultana killed if she doesn't finish the story of Aladdin. But she begs him to wait until "tomorrow night." Will he listen or have her strangled? We just have to wait until night two to find out. The look of the film is as fantastic as its tales. Not since Terminator 2 and the recent Matrix have special effects and story been so perfectly blended. The computer-generated exotic palaces, the enchanted treasure cave of "Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves" and the twin dragons that ineffectively guard it all seem perfectly at home with the sumptuously photographed Turkish locations. Among the standout performances is John Leguizamo in a dual role as the Genie of the Ring and the Genie of the Lamp. Leguizamo is simultaneously funny and menacing as the latter Genie, though his lines are a bit anachronistic. "Are you related to the Genie of the Ring," asks Aladdin (Jason Scott Lee). "No. Well, maybe," replies the Genie. "The tests were inconclusive." With the exception of some incongruous toilet humor — a stowaway on a magic carpet gets slammed into the butt crack of a giant nude statue and another character is immersed in excrement — Arabian Nights is a fabulous two-night vacation to the mysterious Orient. |