Let me give you three wishes processing through my mind while I anticipated this remake.
The first one would be for Will Smith to stay his own character instead of intentionally copying the legendary Robin Williams.
The second would motivate Guy Ritchie to once again make a really good movie unlike “King Arthur: Legend of the Sword”.
Finally, the third would at least be as refreshing and charming like the remake of “Beauty and the Beast” two years ago.
They came true for the love of god.
You see, I was expecting this film to be another disaster for Disney like “A Wrinkle in Time” and even “The Nutcracker and the Four Realms”.
Guy Ritchie successfully respects the classic 1992 original animated film in its own merits and makes it surprisingly entertaining and charming to watch.
Now everybody in the whole entire world (let alone universe) knows the story by heart. Aladdin is considered a street thief in Arabia and finds a delicate lamp containing a magical, blue genie, whom considers Aladdin to grant three wishes to it.
Aladdin has to hide the lamp from the evil and malicious Jafar. What he has to do is that he has to dress up as a wealthy prince while trying to impress his appearance towards the Sultan and his daughter, Jasmine.
I remember last week seeing a clip from IGN of Will Smith singing “Prince Ali”. I thought it was truly vile and people thought this would be the utter and disastrous remake Disney would ever distribute.
Yes. Even more than “Alice in Wonderland”.
Well, folks. It is safe to say that this new reincarnation of “Aladdin” is a massive surprise. I was not expecting this to be refreshing from what I saw on the silver screen. It truly is the biggest surprise of 2019.
My personal favorite thing about this remake is that it does a couple things different compared to the 90-minute animated classic.
The Genie in this version has a family and of course, it meant a lot to him because he wanted to be free (since he is human mostly throughout the film rather than being a blue wad of CGI). It feels heartfelt and necessary for this element to be incorporated in order to create a theme of family.
There is a nice little tune that Jasmine sings when not giving up her fights called “Speechless” written by the lyricists of La La Land (Benj Pasek, Justin Paul) that is beautifully inserted.
Having said that, all of the elements from the original truly stay in their own merit successfully.
First off, I do not understand the hate for what other people said about not only both Mena Massoud and Naomi Scott as Aladdin and Jasmine respectively, but also for Marwan Kenzari as Jafar, too (maybe with the accent, I can understand it).
The actors do a really good job expressing the emotions and hopes for the characters like in the original. Sure. It’s not going to bring anything new to the characters, but they do just a plain, fine job with it.
Frank Welker returns to voice the Cave of Wonders, the cute monkey Abu, and Jasmine’s pet tiger Rajah. He still does not show his age after all of the many voice credits he had for 50 years. I am sorry as well, but Alan Tudyk was better than Gilbert Gottfried as Iago. He was more sarcastic than just having an annoying clown voice. Iago is brutal at a certain time, too.
The songs composed by the legendary Alan Menken are about as beautiful as it was 27 years ago from “A Whole New World” to a kind-of better arrangement of “Arabian Nights” sung by Will Smith.
Speaking of Will Smith, he brings out a surprisingly fantastic, hysterical, and assistive genie that does not offend the legacy of Robin Williams. Smith is easily my favorite aspect of the film because he makes the role his own. Even in a clip from the “Ellen” show, he even cited it was hard to attempt because of the legendary Williams.
While Robin Williams makes the character a stand-up comedian, Will Smith makes this character where his “Hitch” mentor attitude meets (I’m not going to lie) a gangster-from-the-hood “Fresh Prince of Bel-air”. I was laughing mostly all the way through whenever he shows up on screen. Trust me.
This film lasts 128 minutes long and it truly did not feel like two hours! Well…not like the experience I had with the bore-fest “The Best of Enemies”.
I guess you can say that Guy Ritchie has made his comeback by remaking “Aladdin” in a full-fledged epic atmosphere. Please take your kids to see this remake as always. Don’t expect “The Jungle Book” level amazing. Expect to be more like a certain Disney remake called “Beauty and the Beast” where it nearly doesn’t touch the original by a heartbeat.
My wishes came true, Disney!
Grade: 7.5/10
