The movie is just brilliant. There are very little *bad* things, just distractions. The best thing about the movie is definitely Will Smith, whose makes a triumphant return to his comedic roots (which I believe is his forte) and is very much reminiscent of his days in the Fresh Prince, and definitely does not try to be Robin Williams in any way. Jafar is definitely much better in the movie than in the trailers which do him no justice – I find certain parallels between him and Aladdin greatly benefit the character as they strengthen the choices done by our hero.
Just as much enjoyable were scenes which are hallmark of Guy Richie (specially “one jump ahead”) The distractions mentioned earlier where sporadic, but are very present unfortunately – the big two being autotune (although the orchestration and the singing in and of itself was excellent) and occasionally the genie s head seemed to exist independently of his body. Also the placing of some of the musical numbers and their execution felt like music videos shoved into the movie and the reprise to new song, “Speechless”, brilliantly performed by Naomi Scott’s Princess Jasmine, starts and ends randomly and a little awkwardly. Otherwise, I have nothing to criticize except for the meaningless gripe that I d have had the usually-comedic Alan Tudyk shine more by giving more one-liners to Iago and a tribute to the memory of the late Robin Williams at the end wouldn’t have hurt, but they’re just personal preferences. Otherwise it is a great take on a memorable classic. Go and watch.
Review by Raphael Borg