Review: Disney's Aladdin

Disney continues its slate of live action movies as this week the studio releases Aladdin based on the animated film that came out in 1992. Is this new film faithful to the original classic?

It's been so long since I've seen the animated Aladdin movie so I was going into this remake with a fresh mind. I didn't remember much about the original film apart from one song and that was it.

To my delight though, I ended up liking the live action version of Aladdin. Sure it's not a perfect movie, but it does enough to differentiate itself from the animated movie plus most of the new cast is likable.

For one thing, I was actually very impressed with the CGI in Aladdin.

The blue genie played by Will Smith looks pretty decent as it's an improvement over what we saw in the trailers. The CGI animals and special effects also look great as they appear to be realistic.

Outside of the CGI characters, Mena Massoud is charismatic as Aladdin as he's full of energy and can actually sing well.

However, he is probably outshined by Naomi Scott who is pretty as Princess Jasmine. Much like Massoud, Scott is also really good at singing and is faithful to the original songs.

Will Smith is excellent as the genie and he's my favorite character in the entire movie. He adds his own charm to the role because he doesn't just try and mimic Robin Williams' performance back in 1992.

The only weakest part of the cast is Marwin Kenzari who plays the villain Jafar.

This version of the character is less imposing and threatening because Kenzari isn't a physical threat. Disney should have cast someone bigger in order to match the animated original.

Despite a weak Jafar, I feel Aladdin is watchable even though if you have not seen the original movie before.

I got chills listening to Disney's new rendition of 'A Whole New World' because it's faithful to the original version. Even most of the other songs and musical scenes match the animated version.

The only type of people that I can think of that might not like this movie are people that don't like watching musicals.

If you hate singing in movies for no apparent reason, you won't like this movie because there are a lot of musical scenes!

As for the rest of the movie, I will say the film is boring at the beginning, but things get much better once Will Smith's Genie is introduced.

Once he's in the movie, I started to understand the story more and it was more enjoyable.

Anyway, Aladdin 2019 is not a perfect film, but it does enough to make it a fun and watchable movie.

The music and CGI is mostly great and the majority of the cast is great. The only thing I didn't really like is this weak version of Jafar, and that's about it.

Verdict: 3.5/5 stars

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