Aladdin (2019)

Malakriss said:

Songs and elaborate Vegas dance performances work for animated fictional settings. Trying to put that in live action "reality" is never going to work. At best you get the comedic TV show episode singing where they embrace the cheeze.

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Bollywood would like to have a word.
Guy Ritchie and Will Smith are both way the fuck out of their element on this.

In an age where they can pull off the effects with movies like The Avengers and Alita: Battle Angel, I expected at least SOME magic shown in that clip by comparison to the Robin Williams version. Nope, just Will Smith on a Macy's float. Fucking pathetic.

Malakriss said:

Songs and elaborate Vegas dance performances work for animated fictional settings. Trying to put that in live action "reality" is never going to work. At best you get the comedic TV show episode singing where they embrace the cheeze.

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Others have linked great examples, but this just isn't true. Indians do this all the time, not even for movies--just for music videos. And the visuals are striking and interesting.



You can make work it you aren't a lazy asshole with your camera. In this case they could have used a CGI genie liberally to make all kinds of fun, interesting cuts to add reaction to the parade and then zoomed back to see some visuals that made it seem pretty insane. Instead, as others mentioned, it literally looks like a Disney street parade.

Really though, watch the above video or the Caliane linked. I've seen the above one half a dozen times and I still find it interesting to watch.

Rewatched the original, remastered for blue-ray and the cartoon is near flawless I can't imagine them possibly capturing the range of the characters for this. Jaffar and Abu especially. If the sand tiger scene is a static tiger, that would be more fail.
With that said, a person in the room shrugged and said they can't get into cartoons and loved both the live action Jungle Book and Beauty and the Beast, so maybe this movie simply isn't for me? But I also can't accept that because stale cardboard acting that is live action simply to be live action is bullshit unacceptable.

Exactly its not about live action. Its about a bad production.

Its a damn shame they are going to put this movie out in this condition.

jayrebb said:

Exactly its not about live action. Its about a bad production.

Its a damn shame they are going to put this movie out in this condition.

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Agreed. I'm not even saying recreate the same masterpiece 1:1. But have some class, have life.

Maybe I'm wrong but no trailer so far has shown me anything likeable.

Lion King was also a masterpiece but it's trailer at least reminds me of a Christmas Carol (whatever the Dickens one is called). That I felt was pointlessly converted but also captured audiences that didn't like live action and it was both not offensive and true to source.

This was also a good "boy" Disney cartoon - it was really boy gets girl with a slightly enchanted girl role and some light feminism - in comparison to like snow white, sleeping Beauty and even beauty and the beast were all primary female.

This I am sure is going to notch up the feminism and crap.

Letting Robin Williams have freedom with his lines and lyrics is one thing... letting Will Smith have the same...

You get a rap infused prince Ali at 1/2 tempo that sounds like crap.

Xadion said:

This was also a good "boy" Disney cartoon - it was really boy gets girl with a slightly enchanted girl role and some light feminism - in comparison to like snow white, sleeping Beauty and even beauty and the beast were all primary female.

This I am sure is going to notch up the feminism and crap.

Letting Robin Williams have freedom with his lines and lyrics is one thing... letting Will Smith have the same...

You get a rap infused prince Ali at 1/2 tempo that sounds like crap.

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His flatness in the Prince Ali parade song was jarring in the trailer.

So this is out now, fess up whoever saw it and let us know all the horrible parts. Would you turn Jasmine down?

After Moana, should have Disney chosen The Rock for the role of Genie not will Smith?

Just saw it today with my 3 year olds as well, and outside of the songs it was decently good. The only song that wasn’t awful was whole new world. Will Smith wasn’t a bad genie during the non singing parts, but his tempo just shat all over the songs. And they felt they needed to shoehorn in a new girl power song which was terrible (well performed, just out of place and cringy). They changed the ending up quite a bit post taking down jafar, and it’s not a terrible change assuming they don’t plan to follow up with the sequels.

Actress who played jasmine did a good job, plus she’s pretty hot. Actor who played Aladdin wasn’t terrible but wasn’t great either.

Yeah when I read that they pushed in a new "frozen let it go" song - for the purpose of "girl power" I am not happy... because as I said- this was one of the few - boy focused Disney cartoons - and it was barely that...now it's completely not I am sure.

I managed to be at WDW this entire weekend and NOT go see it... in fact... for an opening weekend of a new film, they did NOTHING in any of the parks.

Oh and there were a few scenes where they seemed to just be sped up to increase the pace? I dunno, was really weird.

The girlfriend wanted to go to a movie this weekend. I suggested John Wick, she suggest Aladdin. We went to Aladdin.

Uh, it wasn't bad... got to say, I actually enjoyed it. I haven't seen the original cartoon since I was a kid in 1992, but this one brought back some good memories and nostalgia.

The Good:
-They brought an animated film to life. The colors, the spectacle... it was all well done.
-The pacing clipped along nicely.
-Not a Will Smith fan, but he did a great job with the Genie. He had the highest degree of difficulty, going toe to toe with Robin Williams' iconic Genie. Smith did it, he was the highlight of the movie.
-Jasmin wanted to be the ruler, while everyone else wanted her to marry a ruler. Thing was, she was the most qualified person for the job. So, in the end when she becomes Sultan, it doesn't seem forced. Well done SJW'ism? Disney... lol.
-The actors playing Aladdin and Jasmin did a great job. They really were true to their animated source characters.

The Bad:
-The actor playing Jafar lacked some presence. Prince Oberyn (Pedro Pascal) would have been AMAZING in the role.
-They sped up the camera and used some CGI in some spots where it just wasn't needed.

Had a last minute cancellation of my board game night, so I figured I would catch this before it got slotted out of the Dolby at my theater for Rocketman tomorrow.

Movie was fine, Will Smith was much better than I thought he would be. Jafar wasn't actually that bad per se, so much as he was just a far cry from the role he was reprising. If we never had the animated villain, he would have been much more palatable. He had the calm demeanor, but none of the menacing presence.

Jasmine's new songs felt way out of place. Not that they were bad, I dont even think they were that far over the top girl power. She was correct that she was the only one that cared about her people, other than her father, and should be queen (they probably would have been more overtly "Girl Power" if the Sultan was a bumbling idiot like in the original). However, they felt like a stage musical song stuck in a Disney musical. Maybe Disney wants to bring it to the stage next?

I had read the comments here about the speed up, slow down, so it was obvious when I saw it in the movie. The times I really noticed it were during "One Jump Ahead" where it kind of really made the movie look like a Guy Ritchie movie. It was also used during Prince Ali (which I swear was a different cut than that preview they put out on youtube) and the end credits reprise of "Friend Like Me". I am pretty sure it is there to imitate an animated look, because that's how they animate things, slow on key frames, fast on transitions. The TikTok app does basically the same thing, and with proper choreography can make people look unsettlingly animated, which is what happened. There is a good example of it being done at the start of this thread



Anyway, the movie is fine, but there is no reason to spend 2 hours watching this when you could spend 90 minutes watching Robin Williams.