A CGI world

Rating: 8/10 (26 May 2019)

This movie captures the heart of the original, not entirely but has enough elements to keep you interested. The new song by Naomi is cute and she does a great job as Jasmine. Mena also does a decent job as Aladdin. The star of this movie is truely the Gennie captured by Will Smith. I don't know what this movie would have been without him. The movie did a great job of rendering Agrabah but it feels like it's a part of Morocco more than a fictitious city in Iraq.
Now for the negatives. Some of the scenes looked CGI heavy in an unnatural way. This particularly comes though in the cave and the final wish for Jaffar scenes. They both looked amateurish for what the movie needed them to be. Otheriswe, the visual effects looked great and especially on the (friend like me) song. It was a lot of fun. Which makes me wonder why some of these scenes fell short? On the topic of Jaffar, his character falls short in comparison to the others in this movie or in comparison to the original. He is not the menacing evil Jaffar you'd hope for but overall becomes easier to live with as the movie progresses. The dancing had some Bollywood elements in it which takes you away to India for a few moments. This also comes through the costume designs especially for Jasmine as a lot of her wardrobe was heavily influenced by Indian rather than Middle Eastern colours and aesthetics. Overall the movie holds its own as a live action version of Aladdin and I would be looking forward to a sequel to see more of this world and I hope the issues above get fixed for the Return of Jaffar.