Was It Worth It?

Rating: 8/10 (11 August 2019)

I guess everyone will have to come to their own opinion as to whether it was any count. This is just mine.
Aladdin is one of my favorite Disney films. It came out when I was a teenager but it was so magical and had such great songs, I don't see how anyone couldn't have like it.
Robin Williams as the Genie was absolute genius. He was the stand out from the film and there would have never been anyone else that could've done it better. It was HIS role. Knowing that, who wasn't worried about how Will Smith would do with his portrayal of the character? I know I had my doubts.
There's no way he could've topped Robin Williams. He just couldn't do it. He was going to have to make it a role that was reminiscent of William's yet all his own. He did just that.
I must say that when he made his Genie appearance, I was a bit underwhelmed by it. However, further into the film I found myself feeling more and more better about it. It was hard because even while I was trying to judge the performance in comparison to William's, there are just some moments that I just couldn't help myself.
Let's talk about the rest of the film for a moment. I thought that the choices for Aladdin and Jasmine were well suited. My only problem with those roles were that Aladdin, as weird as it may sound, didn't stand out as much as I felt he should have and Jasmine seemed to have a bit too much sass. Neither of them came off as vulnerable as I wanted them to.
The rest of the film was vibrant, had a few new songs and some of the details had changed. There really was a great effort to keep it just as magical as the animated while making it a film all its own.
Some folks may want to complain about the CGI stuff but I didn't find it all that bad. It was going to be hard to create the magical aspects and I felt that the things that used CGI for things like Raja were kept as minimal as possible.
Considering how challenging it was going to be, I thought it was well done and I personally liked it. Will Smith didn't top Robin WIlliams and I'm glad he didn't. Robin Williams left us with some awesome performances that just shouldn't be topped and Genie is one of those performances. It would've been amazing to have seen him in this live version but I'm thankful that he left us with all he did. I appreciate that Will Smith didn't try to over do a complete cover and put his own twist on it. Props to him. It was big shoes he was trying to fill and he gave us a decent Genie.