Aladdin Reviews

Am a huge Disney fan and have been for pretty much my whole life, 'Cinderella', 'Peter Pan' and 'The Lion King' being my first Disney films (still love all three, especially 'The Lion King'). 'Aladdin' is one of my favourites from them as well as being one of my favourite animated and even overall films. Great animation, songs, characters and one of Disney's best voice acting performances ever in Robin Williams. Will admit to not being overly excited hearing that there was going to be a live-action remake and was a bit mixed on the trailer.

Have nothing against remakes, or at least try not to, and have liked a few of Disney's previous live-action remakes. The best being 'The Jungle Book' and 'Cinderella'. Will Smith when he has good material is a likeable actor and still have fond memories of watching 'The Fresh Prince of Bel Air' when younger. Although not a fan of Guy Ritchie, there is no bias against him either. Decided to see 'Aladdin' with mixed expectations, due to being such a big fan of Disney and after hearing from a few friends that it was good.

Do sadly have to agree with those that were disappointed and this is even when judging 'Aladdin' (2019) on its own merits. There is a lot of spectacle and most of it is great, but the magic and soul were missing. Again, like as was said for the recent version of 'The Lion King', there has always been an effort to not excessively compare and judge something on its own, but when one version is so great and another fails badly in comparison it is hard not to.

There are good things with 'Aladdin'. Although very Bollywood-ish (am not saying that as a bad thing, just an observation), the costumes and sets are big, colourful and quite lavish. Some of the photography dazzles. The music that still has the involvement of Alan Menken, songs and score (the music being one of the main reasons as to why the animation is the classic that it is), is a sheer delight. The likes of "Friend Like Me" and "A Whole New World" being classics. Here the older songs are re-worked and there are a couple of new ones, complete with some equally dynamic new scoring. "Friend Like Me" and "A Whole New World" are very nicely done, and also really liked the more ambitious re-working of "Arabian Nights" and "Speechless" (the better of the two added songs) adds such a lot to Jasmine's character.

Really liked what was done with Jasmine's character, who is by far the most interesting and most developed character in the film and her development is richer than in the animated films. The performances were mixed, with Naomi Scott sparkling like a true diamond as Jasmine and Will Smith makes a very game and spirited effort filling giant shoes and brings a lot of charisma and freshness to Genie. Mena Massoud isn't as strong but is appealing as Aladdin.

However, Guy Ritchie came over as the wrong director. Did think even hearing about it that he was a strange and potentially disastrous choice for the job and his style just doesn't gel and was in serious need of more subtlety. There is some dazzling photography but too much of it is a bit too overblown and gimmicky. The film could have done with having fewer special effects and they tend to not be all that great, felt even from the trailer that Genie looked weird and my feelings haven't changed. The script could have done with more freshness.

For me too the story was in need of more charm, energy and soul. It doesn't quite suffer as badly as 'The Lion King' from being too faithful and not having enough of its own identity, but what comes over faithfully does not have the same impact or feel anywhere near as fresh. The additional content mostly doesn't add as much as ought and bloats the film, which could have been 15 minutes shorter (which was a fairly similar problem too with 'Beauty and the Beast'). Marwan Kenzari is a complete non-entity as a pretty one-note Jafar, whose back-story was laudable on paper but wasn't particularly compelling somehow. Abu, Iago and Rajah don't make anywhere near the same impression either, though Abu has his moments (helps too that Frank Welker is back, Iago however sounded odd without Gilbert Gottfried who voiced the character for the original and its two sequels and the television show).

On the whole, lacklustre but has its moments. 4/10

Esta crítica no va a hacer muchas comparaciones con la versión animada porque fue hace mucho tiempo desde la última vez que la vi y puede que no me acuerde de mucho.

De este remake ya me esperaba una mala película desde los trailers, puesto que las readaptaciones de los clásicos de Disney cuentan la misma historia que las versiones animadas, pero sin el encanto. Lo único bueno de estos remakes es que nos hacen apreciar de vuelta los clásicos animados.
Ver esta película con bajas expectativas, sin embargo, me ayudó a no considerarla una película atroz. Es una película mala a secas, tiene muchas cosas flojas y cosas que no estuvieron mal.

En lo que respecta a diseño de producción y vestuario estuvo bastante bien. Es una ambientación muy a lo Bollywood y a veces parece un escenario de teatro. Ya la puedo ver nominada al Oscar de Mejor Vestuario.
Aunque también el CGI, que no está tan mal, pero llega a ser invasivo y termina chirriando como en algunas escenas del Genio, incluso los animales están hechos por ordenador. Venga, no me pueden decir que una compañía multimillonaria como Disney no podía pagar por un mono o un tigre bien entrenado.

En actores y personajes... Es muy disparejo. Varias actuaciones, o no son muy destacables o son planas, como la de Mena Massoud como Aladdin; una lástima, porque hacía buena química con Naomi Scott, consiguiendo un romance creíble sin ser pasteloso.
El peor caso fue el de Jafar. El Jafar animado daba un aspecto intimidante y dejaba ver su lado despiadado. El Jafar de Marwan Kenzari no luce intimidante y su actuación es deficiente. Por el lado de la escritura también tenía cierto potencial, ya que no quería el reino simplemente por tener, sino porque él creía que se lo merecía después de tantos años de sacrificios. Pero eso se va al caño en el último acto de la película cuando empieza a desear el poder absoluto cual villano de caricatura de los 80's.

El mayor acierto de la película fue Will Smith como el Genio, que era lo que al público más le preocupaba. La versión de Robin Williams sigue siendo insuperable sin duda, pero el de Will Smith no tiene nada que envidiarle a su antecesor animado. Smith ofrece una interpretación con mucho carisma, y sus chistes son los mejores.

El personaje del Sultán... Existe. No hace realmente nada interesante, sólo está ahí para tener al personaje del Sultán y ya.

También agregaron un nuevo personaje, Dalia, que no está ni bien ni mal. Es un cliché, pero uno tolerable.

Como era de esperarse, la historia es la misma de la versión animada, con muy pocos cambios, que es lo que más nos molesta de estos remakes en general, que estén tan aferrados a la versión original que no puedan artiesgarse y ofrecer otra perspectiva.

La dirección es bastante promedio. Disney últimamente ganado mala fama por limitar la creatividad de sus directores. En este caso, quien ocupa la silla del director es Guy Ritchie, a quien no se le dejó usar su estilo visual más que en dos ocasiones muy pequeñas. No sientes que estás viendo una cinta de este director.

Las canciones básicamente son las mismas con muy ligeros cambios. No están mal, aunque me llama la atención que a veces usan instrumentos electrónicos, que termina siendo algo chocante en una película ambientada en la antigua Arabia.
Sólo una canción es original, y no es que esté mal, sino que ocurre en una escena completamente innecesaria que termina siendo ridícula. Los que ya vieron la película saben cuál es; y si no viste la película, la vas a identificar inmediatamente y me darás la razón.

Pues bueno, aun con sus fallos, yo la posiciono como el tercer mejor live action de Disney. No fue una buena película, pero por sus virtudes está a salvo de ser la atrocidad que fue el remake de La Bella y la Bestia. Es bastante disfrutable y una que si podría volver a ver.

Me doy cuenta de que si hice muchas comparaciones con la original. Joder, me doy asco.

To be honest, following the disappointing new version of 'Dumbo', I really lowered down my expectations for this flick but since 'Aladdin' has always been my favorite Classic Disney animated feature, I still wanted to check it out. On top of that, I was about the same age of my daughter when I saw the animated version when it was released in the movie theater, so it was really neat to see this new version with her. Well, eventually, I thought it was not bad at all after all. Indeed,  Mena Massoud and Naomi Scott were some perfect choices to respectively play Aladdin and Jasmine but, of course, I was above all impressed by Will Smith. Indeed, not only he managed to make a tribute to Robin Williams's iconic performance but he also managed to make the character is own somehow. Basically, he completely nailed it and gave here one of best  performances in years. Concerning the story itself, well, they played it safe like they did with the new versions of 'Cinderella' and 'Beauty and the Beast' and they kept maybe 90% of the original story. However, it didn't bother me since, as I mentioned before, I always had a weak spot for this fairy tale and the whole thing looked beautiful and it was still pretty damned entertaining. Anyway, to conclude, even if it was probably another pointless remake from Disney, it was still a decent watch and it is worth a look, especially if you like the genre.