Recently, Hollywood has been releasing movies that are just remakes of the originals. These remakes try to put a twist on the original, scare the public, then surprise the audiences. The thing is, recently I’ve noticed how many remakes Disney, is releasing. This year Aladdin was released and in the year 2020, they are going to release Mulan.
I’m a huge movie critic and I love the originals of most of the Disney movies. I recently went to go see live-action Aladdin, and there were some parts I loved and other parts I disliked. Before its release, my expectations were low since I had no clue how they could add to the cartoon Aladdin. After seeing the movie, I was impressed with the work done but I’m still a critic of it. Here is the trailer for those who haven’t seen it yet.
I was really impressed by the choreography that was done. It was by far some of the best choreography I’ve seen in a Disney movie. The choreography really brought the feeling of Aladdin alive.
The cast who brought the characters to life, were amazing, even Will Smith did well. I’m a huge fan of Robin Williams as Genie and that’s the best version of Genie, no doubt. Will Smith, while I’m not a fan of most of his movies, did a better job at being Genie than I anticipated. He brought his own twists and personality to Genie, that it was enjoyable to watch. Naomi Scott as Jasmine was one of the best choices they could’ve made because she definitely played an amazing Jasmine and Jasmine’s new song in the movie, “Speechless” is by far the best Disney princess song, other than “I See the Light” from Tangled. She did an amazing job showing how strong and how graceful Jasmine was. Then, Mena Massoud, was a true star as he played Aladdin. I admit I was worried about him as Aladdin, but he did an amazing job and by the end, I believed he was the best choice to play Aladdin.
My least favorite parts about the remake was that they got rid of the Jafar song and that Jafar repeated the same lines over and over again that Jafar was a true parrot in this remake. I did enjoy Jafar this movie, Marwan Kenzari did an amazing job portraying the villain, making me want more lines and more screen time for Jafar. I’m just sad that Disney did not deliver on that since in the original Jafar had a bigger role than just saying, “know your place” or “stay quiet” or cursing people with his staff. I did enjoy though how smart Jafar was this movie and the fact that Disney let him push someone down a well. Good one Disney.
This is the Jafar version of Prince Ali I’m talking about when I say a Jafar song.
Another thing I disliked about the movie was most of music. Thank you, Alan Menken for the original music and for trying to put a twist to the songs. You are an amazing composer and I love most of your music, usually. I didn’t enjoy the talking in the songs, the clear autotune that you could hear in most songs, or the change in pace of “One Jump Ahead”. Another part with these songs is the weird camera movements done for most of the songs. In “Friend Like Me”, the camera was zooming all around the place and it was hard to keep up with. It was just hard to keep up with what was happening and the action taking place. Along with the fast movements in the camera, there was also the fast movements in the script where things either quickly escalated or where they got stuck on one part for the longest time (the jams). It was funny the first time and maybe the second, but when they brought it back up over and over, it was just overplayed.
Here are both of the versions of “One Jump Ahead”, the first one is from the 2019 Aladdin and the second one is from the 1992 Aladdin.
Finally, let’s talk about the use of CGI. Wow some parts were gorgeous and well done. Other times, yikes Disney, you need to slow down on your use of CGI. The CGI for Iago and Abu were amazing and they both were adorable. Iago was funny and had me loving Iago even more while Abu also brought laughs but didn’t really leave anything memorable for me to have. Also, the scene of “A Whole New World” was not that fun to watch. They didn’t travel as far and the CGI really showed through that I felt like there was a whole new world with the green screen rather than the actual world.
To the cast and crew of Aladdin, if you see this, you guys did amazing overall and you should be really proud of your work. Everything I’ve heard and seen about the 2019 version really does exemplify the hard work put into this movie. Thank you for bringing Agrabah and the story of Aladdin to a live-action version.
What do you guys think of the new Aladdin? Do you like the original or is the new one better? Let me know in the comments below.