“Aladdin”: A Whole Old World

Release Date：May/24/2019
Genre：Adventure/Comedy/Family
Director：Guy Ritchie
Cast：Will Smith、Mena Massoud、Naomi Scott、Marwan Kenzari、Numan Acar

Viola's Rating：6.4







Starting with “Cinderella”, “The Jungle Book” and “Beauty and the Beast”, Disney continues to turn its classic animations into live-action feature films. In 2019, there will be three classic adaptations. With “Dumbo” being the first, here comes “Aladdin”, and “Lion King” is waiting to be released in the summer. Although “Aladdin” is overall better than “Dumbo”, which continues the story instead of reprises it, it doesn’t give the audience “a whole new world” as its theme song sings.

As a live-action adaptation of Disney's 1992 animated film of the same name, which is based on the eponymous tale from “One Thousand and One Nights”, this adventurous family comedy tells the story of a kind-hearted young street rat, Aladdin, and a power-hungry Grand Vizier, Jafar, competing for a magical lamp that has the power to make their deepest wishes come true.

Since the background of the tale is set in Arabia, it’s reasonable that Disney cast actors and actresses of Arab, Central Asian, Middle Eastern and Southern Asian descent, but of course, it’s a Hollywood flick, so they all speak perfect English, then why on earth do all the other commoner characters or minor roles speak with accent? “Aladdin (2019)” has done an amazing job abolishing sex discrimination, but with such detail emphasizing, it still keeps its racial double standard.

If you’re an ultimate Disney freak like Chris Evans, you’ll appreciate the motion picture’s fidelity to the initial animation. Basically, most dialogues are direct lines from the original work, but this also means that no surprising plots seen in the new edition. Besides, despite “Aladdin (2019)” grants the antagonist Jafar a much more profound background, which provides him good reasons to finish so many evil deeds, as a sorcerer, the live-action version of Jafar appears a little bit too weak. Maybe this attribute makes the picture come across as a more realistic edition, but it loses the appeal the initial Jafar has.

Also, the interesting but irritating parrot Jafar has, Lago, is a wicked bird that plays a critical role in helping Jafar, while in “Aladdin (2019)”, it spends most of the time repeating Jafar’s words, losing its characteristics, which is really a pity for those who are fond of this role in particular.

In spite of all these flaws that could be improved, the historic character, Genie, remains the spirit of the feature film. Starred by Will Smith, he not only didn’t try to mimic Robin Williams’ performance, but also creates his own Genie with its unique charisma.

All in all, “Aladdin” is an awesome flick to enjoy with, but it doesn’t give moviegoers much new stuff. Therefore, though its soundtrack is as brilliant as the original one, instead of “A Whole New World”, it sings an old one.

Picture Credit: IMDb