Review: Aladdin (2019)

Aladdin (2019)

Ugh... I think the most succinct review I could give to this film is to put in one of those frowny-face emojis... Here is yet again one more uninspired live-action remake of a beloved Disney classic. This one had an uphill battle right from the get-go knowing it would have to compete with the late Robin William's tour de force performance as the Genie. However, truth be told, Will Smith's go at the role is not the worst part of this film. In fact, though Smith is no Williams, he does an adequate job at the role and tries his best to put his own spin on it (though it is difficult not to see Genie as simply being a blue-Will Smith).

Aladdin is a strange beast as it is a mixture of recreating the original film verbatim and then also adding in some new plot points for Jasmine and the Genie.  The depth of these two characters are noticeably upgraded while the title character's arc remains quite unremarkable and relatively uninteresting.  Jasmine contends with being a female in a male-dominated society relegated to her palace and without a voice in society and Genie deals with the struggle between wanting freedom and being subservient to his master, however, Aladdin's struggle is simply whether to lie or not in order to get the girl he fancies. This result is a bit wonky and awkward. The film has its moments though, some of the action scenes, songs and interactions do work well. I don't particularly think director, Guy Ritchie's, style was the best choice for this film - some of his time altering tricks are rather obtrusive here and do not have the cool effect such as in his early English thug films. Some of his humour does work though as between Aladdin and Genie.

The cast is also very much a mixed-bag. Mena Massoud who plays Aladdin is quite hit-or-miss. I found him quite stiff in the scenes with Jasmine while he fared better with the ones with Genie. Naomi Scott I thought was one of the stronger presences (possibly due to her more compelling story), as well, she has a strong new musical number. As stated, Will Smith is okay. He is given more space with a greater story though he is very much still 'Will Smith' acting here. Lastly, the other main key cast is Marwan Kenzari as Jafar. Honestly, I thought this was one of the weakest parts of the film. The filmmakers clearly tried to make Jafar less of an overt or exaggerated villain but the result, in my opinion, is simply a wholly uninteresting villain. I really did miss the manic evilness of the old animated Jafar while watching. I imagine a lot of people who have a special place in their hearts for the original Aladdin will probably see this at some point. As always, there is base entertainment value in seeing an animated film transition to live-action but, in this case, the enjoyment doesn't go far beyond that point. This new rendition of the classic is most definitely not 'a whole new world'.