Entertaining as a whole, but Disney dropped the ball on this one.

Rating: 5/10 (13 June 2019)

Maleficent (though a completely new story) was amazing.
Cinderella was just bad.
Beauty & The Beast was a masterpiece.
Jungle Book (my absolute favorite Disney film) was a complete let down.
Now Aladdin.
As a whole, the movie was entertaining.
I was concerned about casting Will Smith as Genie because even though I like Will Smith movies, he usually tends to want to make things about himself when he's not the leading role.
However, I will admit that Will Smith and Mena Massoud (Aladdin) saved the movie. While there was a lot to like, there was much more not to like.
Overall, the production seemed rushed. I feel that had Disney separated Aladdin and Lion King on different years, they could have done a better job. But as usually, Disney = $$$.
My biggest complaint isn't the story itself. My biggest compliant is that all the actors were soooooo bad. I understand Disney trying to make a full cast of Arabic descent, but it was hard watching them.
Naomi Scott (Jasmine) was just so gorgeous in this movie. She looks ok in the trailer, but she is just so beautiful throughout the whole movie. However, she was so robotic.
Jafar's character actually had the most interesting character development which made the movie a lot more interesting. However, even if the goal was to give a serious sinister type character, Marwan Kenzari did not pull it off.
I can go on and on talking about every character. While I understand Disney's motivation, and think it is nice that they wanted a full cast of Arabic descent, but they could have done a LOT better. There are a lot a lot of talented Arabic actors. And if not, there is always Bollywood.
I just think they dropped the ball with the casting choice.
Though Mena Massoud wasn't too great of an actor, he sounded so much like Aladdin and really felt like Aladdin.
Will Smith wasn't as bad as I thought he would be. He definitely can't sing. His singing was pretty bad! But he was ok. They could have done better with a really animated comedian like Jim Carey or Jimmy Fallon. But Will was ok. However, I don't know what was up with the cgi. For 2019, genie's cgi was really dated. His face movement was really weird.
The music part was outstanding. Though Will Smith was bad at singing, with the exception of Friend Like Me, I found all the musical performance to be incredible.
I didn't like that they added a hip-hop beat to all the Will Smith songs, but it's ok. Prince Ali and the dance between Jasmine and Aladdin were just WOW!! It was super impressive!
In comparison to the original movie, there are a few points that really made the movie two dimensional.
Abu, Iago, and the final fight.
Abu and Iago really made the original animated movie funny and fun. Both of these characters in this version movie were just.. props.
The final fight between Jafar and Aladdin was super rushed. It was very disappointing. There was no build up at all.
And lastly, one aspect that was really missing in this movie was the relationship between Aladdin and Genie. In the original, they formed a bond. Which is why Genie saved Aladdin from the ocean. And why at the end it was emotional.
They never really form that bond in this movie.
Sure, it's worth watching. But Aladdin being one of my favorite Disney movies, it just didn't do it for me.