Disappointing Unnecessary Remake

Rating: 4/10 (1 June 2019)

Aladdin (2019) Review:
Aladdin is the remake of the 1992 Disney classic and everybody knows the plot so I don't need to explain it. I don't understand why Disney is remaking classic movies lately. I know it's for money but they're so desperate they can't come up with anything original. Out of the three live action remakes this year, Dumbo, Aladdin, and The Lion King, this one had the least interesting trailer and I almost didn't feel the need to see it. My most anticipated one was Dumbo and I was disappointed by it. Let's hope The Lion King is good since this one disappointed me even more than Dumbo. With Dumbo they tried doing something new so I couldn't entirely compare it to the original. With this there were minor differences throughout and it was basically the same plot with not much fun, 38 minutes longer, a few new songs, and a couple new characters. speaking of characters everybody was nervous about Will Smith as the Genie. Yes, he did look kind of dumb with the blue skin but there's nothing we can do about it. I actually thought he was the best part of the movie. He did his best to make it fun but not too over the top. His singing wasn't too bad either. The rest of the characters I could care less about except for Naomi Scott as Jasmine. She was a fine actress and a good singer. Her new song was actually pretty good except the timing of it felt off. As the lead you'd think Mena Massoud would be a good Aladdin. This is his first big role so his audition had to of been pretty good. Well he did not deliver to me. Aladdin was fun in the original but it just seemed like he was trying to be rebellious the whole time. He was trying too hard to be perfect where it was overacting. I personally didn't think his singing was that good. Those statements go for the rest. I found that with Marwan Kenzari as Jafar. He didn't feel like a Jafar to me. Yes, his emotional dynamics were good towards the end but he didn't seem evil to me. The characters were really my big issues with it. The story was the same with a few things added which was fine with me since I'd like something a little new. It's just that it didn't need to be so long. It's 2 hrs 8 min long and some of the stuff added was just long and boring. Now I liked the dancing and songs. The production was cool and so were the costumes, I expected just a little more but that's alright. What really bothered me was instead of reshooting some scenes the match up with the tempo of the music they just sped up the video and kept the music the same. It looked awkward and something edited on a phone. That happened in one of the first scenes. I was confused at first thinking it was intentional but then it wasn't so I kind of laughed. I laughed at a lot of things that weren't supposed to be funny. Like adding more modern styles to the music and dancing. It really bothered me. Maybe put that on the soundtrack as a bonus but it felt off for the movie. Alan Menken is a great composer but this wasn't his best in my opinion. The visuals were fine for the most part but it was obvious that it was computer generated in many spots. Overall I think this was just a disappointment for me. I really started tearing this apart after I saw it but I had to remind myself that I shouldn't compare every little thing to the original. I can see why people would like this. It's just it personally lacked fun and didn't seem that magical as the original. Oh well. See it if you'd like.
My Grade: C