👍 Very close to a total train wreck, but Will Smith saves the day.

Rating: 6/10 (25 July 2019)

Aladdin 2019 is one of those live action Disney movies punched out every year. This movie was included in Watch Mojo's list of films already hated before release, and I was pretty reluctant to see it. But after seeing this film making lots of money and topping Avengers Endgame in the weekend Box Office I decided to give this one a watch just to see what the fuss was all about. Despite going into the theater with reluctance I did have a generally positive experience with this film.
As many point out Will Smith is fantastic in this movie. He just plays the Geenie perfectly with humor and charisma and I personally prefer him over Robin Williams. Naomi Scott and Mena Massoud did do a good enough job but their performance obviously feels a bit dull in comparison to Will Smith because he is a real scene stealer. The production design was good enough especially the looks of the street though some of the CGI was pretty bad. Most of the songs from the original is back and especially the ones Will Smith sings are really worth watching. Though many had problems with Guy Richie's direction I personally think some of the scenes were very well directed with the Magic carpet ride scene being being the stand out. The ending of Genie's character arc (which I wouldn't spoil) was actually better than the original to me. I do understand this is debatable but I think Geenie's character arc's conclusion was more emotionally touching than the animated one.
As you would expect from the Disney live action remakes movement this movie is a beat to beat remake of the animation. There is nothing really different except for obviously the ending as I mentioned, so this movie may feel dull to some people. But what they do add is some modern day politics. It is very clear that they wanted to turn princess Jasmine into a feminist icon and you can tell that from the new songs they added for Jasmine to sing. I understand many like the new musical numbers but to me they were just # Times Up propaganda music. They also changed the ending in a way that doesn't make sense at all just to cram in SJW politics. I would not spoil it, but you would see it no matter how non political you are. In addition, probably due to the release of Vice by Adam McKay, Disney for some reasons decided to portray the Bush administration and the invasion of Iraq in a PG rated Kid's movie through their main villain Jafar. Jafar's plans to invade some random country sounds perfectly like the invasion of Iraq by the Bush administration. Though it was amusing to see Disney lecturing children on modern day politics through a Family film it was frustrating to see that all the filmmakers were able to do was just add SJW politics and political allegory into the classic animation. As I mentioned before some of the editing was occasionally distracting especially the random slow motions and though the CGI was not as distracting I did not like it at all in the third act when Jafar turned into a hilarious CGI monstrosity. To summarize the negatives this movie suffers from being a beat to beat remake and being extremely predictable and to some very dull. But fortunately to me Will Smith saved this movie from being a dull remake to a enjoyable experience.
Overall this is one of those movies that get saved from the performance and charisma of the leading cast. It is like spider man saving a very close train wreck all by himself in Spider Man 2, and Will Smith indeed has saved us from a train wreck. This movie could have been a very dull movie that offers basically the same thing with SJW politics sprinkled at the top. But Will Smith who has a great sense of humor and great chemistry with even the dullest character made this film a very good experience. I rate this a 6/10, and though this isn't a very high score this still is a thumbs up and a positive review.