Colorful and entertaining

Rating: 8/10 (11 November 2019)

The live action remake of Disney's Aladdin stands pretty well on it's own. Being a half an hour longer it features new scenes and ditches some old ones. Definitely not as revamped as the Dumbo remake, but still very entertaining.
Naomi Scott is perfect (as Jasmine).
Will Smith plays the Genie and it is hard not to compare his performance to the phenomenal voicework of Robin Williams and especially Vesa-Matti Loiri, who did an outstanding regional job. But surprisingly, after the initial "this is not the Genie" reaction Smith grows on you. They have seriously dialed down the manic personality of the original Genie, and since Smith's Genie works best when he's calmed down, there would have been room to strip even more of his hyper active traits. And, even the song Friend like me could have been left out completely.
Of the songs the best ones this time are Prince Ali by Will Smith and new song Speechless by Naomi Scott, who's character Jasmine takes a stronger position in this movie.
Jafar the villain is the only character that fails to impress me. I can't really pinpoint exactly why, but I suspect it has to do with how menacing he was in the original, whereas this Jafar you really aren't that afraid of. He should be darker, bigger, more threatening to work better.
2019's Aladdin is a cultural mess, but a beautiful one at that.