Aladdin (2019)

Pros:

•The costumes and sets are absolutely gorgeous! I could easily see their hard word getting some recognition come award season. 

•I appreciate that this wasn’t just a shot for shot remake of the original. I mean, a lot of it is but they also made some changes which I liked. Especially with the character of Jasmine. 

•Mena Massoud was fine as Aladdin. I thought he and Naomi Scott had good chemistry. They had some sweet moments. His best scenes however, were with Will Smith. 

•I was one of those people that was totally okay with Will Smith being cast as the genie. Listen, nothing was ever going to top Robin Williams. But I liked Will Smith’s version for the most part. 

•While I most likely won’t watch this again, it is worth seeing once. 

Cons:

•Jafar was terrible. This version had zero personality and the actor spoke in the same tone pretty much the whole time. 

•As charming as Will Smith is, he can’t sing. Rap? Yes. Sing? Hell no! Don’t even get me started on the “hip hop flavor” he brought to the movie. 

•One of the things that gave me serious doubts about the movie was when I heard Guy Ritchie was directing. He’s not a bad director (I like some of his movies) but his track record has been bad as of late. I knew Disney wouldn’t let him fuck up too much but there were a few moments where he started to go crazy in the third act. Luckily, the Mouse was able to rein him in. 

•That DJ Khalid song that played during the credits. What the fuck was that?! 

•Guy Ritchie just couldn’t resist throwing in tears me of his signature movies where he does a shot in slow motion, speeds it WAY up, and then it’s back to slow motion again. 

•As I said I liked Will Smith as the genie. But I should specify that I liked him when he wasn’t blue. As gorgeous as this movie is, those special effects were awful. Whoever did them should be fired. 

My Rating: 6.5/10