Aladdin
[Devin Dayley]
Year Released: 2019
Director: Guy Ritchie
Starring:
Will Smith
Mena Massoud
Naomi Scott
Synopsis:
Based on the 1992 animated film of the same name. “Aladdin” follows a poor street-urchin named Aladdin (Massoud) as he and the evil Jafar vie for an enchanted lamp which contains a genie (Smith) who holds the power to grant the holder of the lamp three wishes. Honestly, if you don’t know the story of “Aladdin,” I would be surprised.
Review:
Did I like the live-action remake of “Aladdin?” I did. Let’s jump right into it. I will try not to give spoilers away, but I make no promises. So just be sure you’re ready to read this review before you go any further.
I will say that seeing the stage version of Aladdin just weeks before seeing this movie may have been a hindrance. It made it so that I went into the movie with high musical expectations. I mean, Proud of Your Boy? If you haven’t listened to that, pause reading this review and go listen to that song. In my opinion, it is one of the greatest songs ever written. You hear that, Alan Menken? Why wasn’t that included? The music is not bad, by any means. The music done by the orchestra is quite stunning, in fact. It is so good that it seemed to overpower the singing at times. The singing, on the other hand, was hit-or-miss, for me. Some of the actors who sang, Will Smith in particular, did not have the most unbelievable sounding voices. You could tell that his singing abilities were not how most of his fortune was made.
Also, some of the songs started out a few keys too low. It didn’t sound bad, but to musical buffs, it can be distracting.
Speaking of Will Smith, let’s take a little detour and talk about his portrayal of the genie. I LOVED it! Robin Williams is the actor that famously supplied the voice for the genie back in the 90’s animated version. I knew, and most people knew, that it would be nye impossible to live up to Robin Williams’ performance. What Smith did instead was make the part truly his own. If he had simply copied Robin Williams’ performance, there would’ve been speculation about how he didn’t do a good enough job, or even just how it was different. This way, when you are watching Will Smith play the genie, you are only thinking about Will Smith playing the genie and not Will Smith playing Robin Williams playing the genie. Good move, William Smith.
The other two leads, Naomi Scott and Mena Massoud were good. I have nothing bad to say about them but also nothing really great that really stood out to me. Except for Naomi Scott’s singing voice- that was beautiful. Will they get any award recognition for their roles? Probably not, but they did do a good job. The actor that did stand out to me, though, was Marwan Kenzari who played Jafar. He played his role so well. I got the same feeling of him that I got in the animated motion picture, he is a high-class, angry, “second-best” guy who wants to be first best. He did a great job of creating a dark aura around him where you kind of didn’t want to be around him yet still wanted his input in your life.
Now, obviously this movie received some mixed reviews from the press. I can see why. The base story of Aladdin is a fairly simple story about female empowerment. What Disney did was add more to the story and the characters which made parts a little more complex. This didn’t bother me too much. Disney is a company that I kind of expect more complex and definitive stories from, nowadays.
The last thing I wanted to mention in this review, that I loved, is the use of color. For some reason, a staple of movies, set in the middle east, is clothes and fabrics of different colors hanging in the common areas. I equate bright colors with Summer, Summer with warm weather, warm weather with the sun, and the sun to happiness. This, I think, is a common thought pathway for a lot of people. Whether or not the portrayal of middle-eastern people wearing brightly colored is true, the thought of sun and warm weather is calming and uplifting to the mind. My point in saying all of that is that this movie contained a lot of shots, especially in the fabled city of Agrabah.
After seeing this movie and thinking about it, I would rate this movie a 7.1/10.
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