Aladdin 2019: My Good, Bad, and Ugly

Rating: 7/10 (22 June 2019)

The Good:
Disney's latest live action remake is a Colorful, and nostalgic imagining that does justice to the animated original. The use of colors in the 1992 was selective and mainly isolated to the film's main characters set against the sand tones of the desert and of Agrabah. But, in Ritchie's selection the settings and costumes both pop with color reminiscent of the films of Bollywood. With little in the way of expanded story, or more complex characters than its predecessor, this film is vibrant and kinetic and speaks to the cinematic value of live action over animation.
The Bad:
With about 38 minutes more runtime than the animated original, this film didn't add much to set itself above, or even apart from, the original. While it has obviously proved successful for the studio with other live action remakes, like The Jungle Book (Jon Favreau, 2016), and Beauty and the Beast (Bill Condon, 2017), these films are little more than cookie cutter copies of their originals. A few new songs wrapped in all of the familiar ones, and a lot of rehashed dialogue veils an almost complete lack of originality in a film that doesn't accomplish much more than repackaging an animated classic for box office receipts.
The Ugly:
One of Disney's first forays into direct adaptation of one of its earlier animated classics is Cinderella (Kenneth Branagh, 2015). Smartly, Disney dispatched with the mice and songs of the original and focused more on the characters of the story in this remake. While Cinderella's step-sisters are still very much caricatures, the evil step-mother played by Cate Blanchett is fleshed out more than her animated counter-part. Whether it's the expanded storyline, the removal of the Disney animation tropes like talking animals or catchy tunes, the impressive performance of Blanchett, or the direction of Branagh, Cinderella championed Disney's then new trend of remaking its animated classics in live action.