Aladdin 2019: A Whole (Remastered) World (with some new stuff)

Rating: 7/10 (27 May 2019)

Aladdin 2019 is actually a lot more different than the original than I thought it would be. Sure it has the same songs, and the same plot, but it is different, and good enough to take a look at.
All of the songs are musically alright. I think if they had a little less auto-tune and more personality, I would have enjoyed them more. However the visuals that go along with the music are actually really awesome. The opening montage of the characters during "Arabian Nights" was a great way at setting the tone, the exciting chase of "One Jump Ahead" had me on the edge of my seat, the pleasing and jumpy visuals of "Friend Like Me" was very faithful yet unique to the original, and the Breath-taking "A Whole New World" visuals contain Disney's magic.
Will Smith as the genie was a good call. Sure, he is not Robbin Williams, but he really made the movie hilarious by doing his own thing while staying faithful to the character.
This film was definitely a lot more comfortable to do new things (unlike Beauty and the Beast). Jasmine's character was expanded upon in a way that is quite fitting and emotional with the story. The pacing is either too fast or too slow. There is a lot (especially in the beginning) that is very quickly thrown to the side such as the first encounter with the cave of wonders, and Jasmine deciding to go into the town. I think these should have been given their own scenes, because they are big character and plot moments. However there are some parts that really didn't have to go on for as long as they did, and as a result, the film ends up being more than 2 hours. I feel like the original really nailed it's pacing. It knew what kind of a movie it was, and went with it. This movie felt unnecessarily slow or fast at points.
The special Effects aren't really all that good. After a while you get used to the genie's strange look, but when you are forced to look at him for more than 5 seconds it can be kind of laughable in the wrong sense. Also Jafar genie is so hilariously bad, even the kids in front of me were laughing. When the cave of wonders starts exploding with lava, the lava moves so unrealistically fast to the point where it takes me out of the movie. The animals look like animals. Not characters. This is one of the biggest problems that I have with these Disney Live Action remakes. No matter how hard they try, they can never make an animal look better than the animation, because in animation, you are able to personify the animal's looks. If you try to do that with CGI animals (which is something they lightly tried with abu) they look very weird. This is the reason why I am very scared for the Lion King remake.
None of the things I said above were a problem in the original, because you can get away with so much more in animation, and it will look real, because what you're working with isn't real in the first place.
Overall, this was a very enjoyable movie, however it doesn't captivate me like the original does mainly because of the special effects, and because you can't replace Robbin Williams.