| Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures | Release Date: May 24, 2019 | CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION | ||
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Positive:
20
Mixed:
28
Negative:
2
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Critic Reviews
May 28, 2019
With music that breathes new life to beloved songs with an emphasis on percussion and horns, and production designer Gemma Jackson’s luscious world building that borrows from various Middle-Eastern cultures as added pedigree, Aladdin is the rare remake that actually gives us a whole new world.
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May 22, 2019
Chalk it up to modest expectations -- starting with early previews that rubbed people the wrong way -- but Aladdin is a great deal of fun, with charming leads and elaborately mounted songs. It's hardly a whole new world, but in this suddenly well-populated land of live-action reboots, makes the most out of its familiar one.
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May 22, 2019
Despite a couple of large, genie-blue stumbles along the way, Guy Ritchie’s live-action version of Disney’s Aladdin is on balance a colorful and lively adventure suitable for all ages and a touching romance featuring two attractive leads — and has enough creative musical energy to introduce this story to A. Whole. New. World.
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May 22, 2019
It’s great to see Smith in comedic mode again, and smart of the team to base the Genie’s personality on the star’s brand, rather than imitating what Williams did with the role. Even in cases where Smith is quoting directly from the original, his persona comes through loud and clear as this blue-hued, CG-enhanced master of ceremonies.
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Movie NationMay 22, 2019
May 22, 2019
No one really needs this mostly middling, fitfully funny and never unpleasant movie. And the movie itself seems cheerfully aware of that fact as it deftly lifts lines, beats, characters and songs from its 1992 predecessor, every so often punching up the comedy, wrinkling the plot and injecting a dash of politically corrective subtext.
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EmpireMay 22, 2019
Another lavish and largely entertaining Disney re-do, with strong turns from Massoud and Scott. But, appropriately for someone playing a huge, powerful entity trapped in a tiny ornament, Smith’s genie performance feels disappointingly constrained — both by overdependence on the original and some ghastly CGI.
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May 22, 2019
The ever-quickening half-life of pop culture has gotten so short that we’ve now officially entered the era of diminishing returns. It’s the new normal. What’s old is new again — but not quite as good as you remembered it. Aladdin is…fine, but it has no real reason for being beyond, you know, capitalism. A whole new world, it’s not.
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May 24, 2019
As the princess’s handmaiden, Nasim Pedrad at least has the comic timing that the rest of the cast, including, surprisingly, Will Smith, conspicuously lack. Smith understandably didn’t want to compete with Williams, but as the big, blue, top-knotted Genie, he’s uncharacteristically bland. Even the magic carpet in this movie looks bummed out.
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May 22, 2019
It is frequently quite charming, largely thanks to the efforts of Mena Massoud, who captures Aladdin’s irrepressible charisma every second he’s onscreen. Much of the new story material written for the film works, and it’s enjoyable, if pedestrian, family fare. But the terrible musical sequences, the lackluster CGI, and the strange creative and emotional restraint that permeates the film frequently flatten Disney’s original Aladdin into a cardboard version of itself.
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May 22, 2019
As stand-alones, some of these work better than others. Director Jon Favreau’s “The Jungle Book” came off as a real movie unto itself, as did Kenneth Branagh’s sincere, well-acted “Cinderella” (I was in the minority on that one). Aladdin, though, feels pointless. It’s cinematic karaoke. It’s an ice show without the ice.
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May 22, 2019
May 22, 2019
Ricthie’s Aladdin feels sluggish in comparison to the fast-paced original. Even the songs suffer; the direction of the musical numbers is surprisingly unimaginative and turgid, to the point that even surefire showstoppers like “Prince Ali” and the mighty “A Whole New World” end up succumbing to lackluster staging and uncomfortable performances.
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May 27, 2019
Yet Ritchie has made significant alterations. First, he has modified the law of sultanic succession by giving women the right to rule. Second, by some cunning spell, he has taken all the fun from the earlier Disney film and — abracadabra! — made it disappear. The big musical numbers strain for pizzazz. The action sequences are a confounding rush.
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May 22, 2019
This Aladdin’s sole innovation is a feminist Jasmine who refuses to be controlled, but the song is so saccharine and the vistas are so synthetic that it doesn’t feel as if she’s being liberated. It feels as if yet another man is trying to engineer her responses. Aladdin might as well have put a VR headset on her.
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