Aladdin Movie Review: Not Disney's Aladdin, Its Guy Ritchie's Aladdin.

The memorable story of Aladdin has lived in our imagination for Disney’s Animated movie, where we had Robin Williams lending his voice to the blue Genie we all adored from our childhood days. The 90 minutes of the animated movie from 1992 is now translated into a 2 hours long live-action remake of Walt Disney’s Aladdin, which is clearly not whole new world. The movie has its plus as well as minuses. It's more like translation of its animated version. With all the ruckus created for Will Smith playing the Blue Genie, well he happens to the only entertaining part of the movie most of the time. Sure Jafar, played by Dutch actor Marwan Kenzari, is not like the crafty old jafar of the animation rather he is hot and dreamy.

The story still has the Flying Carpet, it has the Entanched Lamp, it has the blue shape shifting Genie but it lacks the magic of it all that the animated version has. The movie barely manages to make you nostalgic about the story which has captured every Disney fans imagination for decades now. Will Smith is charming despite the CGI gig of blue Genie. Though Robin Williams has immortalized he role with his voice and will forever remain the Disney’s Genie for most of the people. Will Smith will entertain you as Guy Ritchie's imagination of it. There's an artificiality to the proceedings here that both strips Ritchie's directorial presence of any identity and hinders the film in a manner of aesthetic naturality.

Aladdin, played by Canadian actor Mena Massoud, is actually irritatingly imitating the animated version of the character, the only change being that he is wearing a shirt throughout the movie. Naomi Scott playing Princess Jasmine makes you less disappointed, though this one doesn’t make you fall in love with the daringly adventurous princess like its animated version. But she is looks pretty dancing around on old and new songs.

It is still the funny-sentimental-inspirational story of a boy named Aladdin who goes from rags to riches when he comes into possession of a magic lamp and a magic carpet, summons a big blue genie, and embarks on a scheme to win the heart of a princess and stop an evil vizier from stealing the kingdom away from the heroine’s dad. There are at least two potentially good and somewhat original takes struggling get out of this remake and assert themselves. One is the story of how the genie bonds with Aladdin (Mena Massoud) and tries to secure his own freedom without breaking any genie rules. The other is about the princess, Jasmine (Naomi Scott), who’s not merely a spirited feminist who enjoys disguising herself as a peasant and hanging with the commoners, but seems ready to agitate for representative democracy if nudged in the right direction. Neither of these is permitted to seize the spotlight for very long, though.

This new Aladdin is like seeing a new production of your favourite stage musical, but you know you've seen a better version of it before.