Aladdin (2019)

“You really don’t know who I am? Genie, wishes, lamp, none of that ringing a bell?”

Genie

The latest addition to the re-imagined Disney animated films opened this weekend with Aladdin. Being one of my favorites of the animated classics (The Lion King being my favorite, July is gonna be fun), I went in with fairly low expectations and was ready to be extra critical about this movie. Based on the trailers, I wasn’t 100% sold on Will Smith as Genie, and I for sure didn’t like the casting choice for Jafar. Of course you can’t replicate Robin Williams, but Director Guy Ritchie and Will Smith have both said that they weren’t trying to re-do his performance, but to emulate it some and bring something new to the table. So with that in mind, I made it a point not to think back on the original 1992 Aladdin while watching this adaptation, and to compare it as little as possible.

As the movie started, I still wasn’t fully on board until about 20 minutes in (or slightly after “One Jump Ahead”), the editing was a little odd with the running slightly sped up to make it appear Aladdin and other characters were running faster than they actually were, it goes away for the most part after that, but was still slightly present. That’s part of Guy Ritchie’s directing style, sometimes it works for me and sometimes it doesn’t, the slow-mo’s were greatly appreciated though. Once Jafar is introduced, that’s when I was ready to see how the rest of the movie would be. A younger and equally menacing Jafar is played by Marwan Kenzari, and I thought he did a pretty good job with the role. Genie was similar to the 1992 original, but did a lot of his own thing as well. As for songs in the film, there’s several new songs that were excellent, but the only one I didn’t fully love was “Friend Like Me” as it’s done more in a rap-style, although it was visually appealing (I’m not the biggest fan of rap). “A Whole New World” was beautifully done though, it’s just as gorgeous of a scene now as it was animated, I’ll for sure be buying the soundtrack for this movie.

VFX in this movie weren’t mind blowing in any way, but they weren’t garbage or anything, however Genie did take a couple minutes to get used to. Costuming and Choreography though were absolutely amazing, all the dances were very involved, very colorful, and very entertaining, even though “Friend Like Me” was my least favorite of the new versions of the songs, it was a whole lot of fun to watch with so much going on. Costuming I really hope that it at least gets nominated for an Oscar, I loved everyone’s costumes even background extras there was a whole lot of detail and color, and I don’t think any two costumes were exactly identical. Another element that I really enjoyed was the main lesson of the film is driven home a lot harder than in the original, not that the original’s lesson isn’t there, its just emphasized more in this one. I won’t say what it is just in case you haven’t seen the original but I think that aspect was handled better in the remake.

I had a good time watching this movie, lots and lots of background humor so keep an eye out for that. I want to give this movie a 7.5/10, I laughed a lot while watching it, and I was also really impressed due to low expectations going in. If I had to compare it with another movie, I’d compare it to the live-action Beauty and the Beast where it’s a pretty faithful adaptation of the original, but there’s several new surprises, new scenes, and a couple new songs, however I liked this one significantly more (same with both animated originals, I like Aladdin more). All and all it’s just a really good time at the theater if you’re looking for something to do this weekend. I’m curious how someone’s reaction would be if they had never seen the original compared to someone who has seen it. If you see Aladdin this weekend, what did you think of it?