Aladdin – Movie Review

In the past few years, Disney has produced live action versions of some of its greatest movies; Cinderella (2015), Beauty and the Beast (2017) and now Aladdin with The Lion King (2019) and Mulan (2020) set to release in the near future. The comparisons with the original were inevitable and the results are not favorable for Aladdin. Like Cinderella and Beauty and the Beast which are overproduced, utterly forgettable and a poor facsimile of the originals, Aladdin is a disappointment.

Guy Ritchie’s Aladdin follows, almost to a T, the plot of the original movie with only a few minor cosmetic changes – all of which stick out like a sore thumb. Genie gets a love story, Prince Achmed becomes Prince Anders, a norwegian prince (whitewashing, anyone?) and the final sequence gets an unnecessary refresh. This film has a very uneven and slow pacing due to being longer than the animated version (which was very crisp in its storytelling).

But the biggest problem lie in the casting itself, the principal characters (Mena Massoud as Aladdin, Naomi Scott as Princess Jasmine) are adequate but do not make a lasting impression. Marwan Kenzari is just not as scary and imposing as Jafar should be. Will Smith as Genie, unfortunately, gets compared to the great Robin Williams who voiced Genie to perfection and he can not quite match up to the genius that was Robin Williams.

Robin Williams’ various impressions, his delivery and ad-libbed lines are what made Genie such a special character and Will Smith almost never looks comfortable in the movie playing this role. The only time he seems a little comfortable is when he is playing Mentor/Wingman to Aladdin in his pursuit of Princess Jasmine (he almost gives off Hitch-esque vibes in those scenes).

The songs themselves are extremely hummable, as they were when Aladdin first came out in 1992, but somehow they all feel lifeless here. The biggest disappointment for me was the rendition of “Friend Like Me” (although “A Whole New World” is a close second) which was so lively in the original, comes across as dull and contrived here. Naomi Scott, who plays Princess Jasmine, is the best singer of the lot and as such gets a new song called “Speechless” which although good, does feel forced into the story. It’s also not her fault that her voice can’t compare to Lea Solonga who voiced Princess Jasmine in the original.

Now, if you have never seen the original animated movie or the live musical version, which has additional songs that were cut from the movie, you might enjoy this movie but believe me that your time and money will be better spent on streaming the original. If you are a true blue fan of Aladdin like me, do not subject yourself to this movie – you will thank me later!