A messy and underwhelming live-action adaptation, with uninspiring results

Rating: 4/10 (22 July 2019)

As much as Disney continues to turn every animated film within their animated vault into live-action, the live-action adaptation of Aladdin is turned into an underwhelming, uninspired and jumbled mess, with only a few redeemable qualities.
In terms of direction, Guy Ritchie is proven to be ill-suited to direct a musical like Aladdin, given the fact of how he handled the direction of the musical sequences turns completely bland, and the results of its action sequences were choppily-cut and sloppy, which results on his direction as extremely rote and soulless. Another issue with this remake, is that the script is completely messy and it's all over the place, with full of cringeworthy dialogue, humour and off-putting jokes, with none of it stick the landing. Furthermore, the prevalence of ham-fisted exposition also results to the loss of naturalism and dramatic pause, and it weakens characterizations. Making no favors either, is that the brutally slowed pacing, which makes the viewing experience of this remake to feel like a complete slog. Another problem that this remake truly suffers, is with the cheap-looking quality of the costumes and sets, along with the inconsistent CGI (particularly the CGI quality of Will Smith's Genie, which almost looks unwatchable), making the remake completely dull and garish. The worst quality of this movie, comes with a cheap and bad cinematography that features like a TV instead of cinema, as well as the jarring and incoherent editing, which really weaken the film's quality even further.
And lastly, comes with the terrible performance of Marwan Kenzari as Jafar, who's completely miscast for the villainous role of Jafar. While film attempts to make Jafar a more suave, handsome and even charming character - compared to being both a literal and figurative cartoon in the animated film, Kenzari's lack of screen presence and wooden delivery fails to do justice to the iconic Disney villain. Furthermore, the part desperately needed an actor with actual bass in their voice, not to mention a prevailing charisma, both of which Kenzari simply lacks. Making no good favors, comes with the underwhelming voice work of Alan Tudyk as Iago, whom simply wasted and falls short to the superior voice work of Gilbert Gottfried as Iago.
Still, the Aladdin is still salvaged with some redeemable qualities that saved this remake from being a complete trainwreck. Among the cast that stood out as the best, was Will Smith in his interpretation of the Genie of which he easily serves as the most entertaining aspect of the entire movie and nearly stealing the whole show. At the same time, his performance gave him the most Will Smith performance that he has ever given. Also, Will Smith also have a good sense of not to try and imitate or out-do the iconic performance of Robin Williams's Genie, by placing Will Smith's own style and flavor in his version of the Genie, which is completely impressive. Also, the major standouts with the movie were Mena Massoud and Naomi Scott as Aladdin and Jasmine, who gave out their fleshed out and natural chemistry to win out above the cheesy nature of the film, as well as charismatic performances. Other members of the cast that nearly stole the show were Nasim Pedrad as Dalia, and Billy Magnussen as Prince Anders, despite of the two being underutilized, had the most effective comedic work and timing.
All in all, the Aladdin remake still serves as an inferior and weak counterpart to the more superior 1992 animated original. Nevertheless, in spite of the film's flaws and problems, the Aladdin remake can simply be treated as a guilty pleasure.