Aladdin live action movie | 24 MAY 2019 | Disney | 7th most profitable movie of 2019. Disney does it again!

[SteveJaros]

Hopefully, Aladdin breaks the Memorial Day Weekend curse!

[Mulder]

What was the tomatometer reveal number?

[kaijukurt]

Its getting good to very good WOM so far here in the Philippines. Some reactions have been popping up on my social media feeds. 

 

My dad came back from a screening and he had only good things to say about it..then without me bringing up anything..he said, "Well, except for Jafar." 😅

[PNF2187]

1 minute ago, Mulder said:

What was the tomatometer reveal number?

71%, so it's a lot rosier than what it's currently at

[I Am]

9 hours ago, CoolEric258 said:

Gee, it seems you don't really like the new music. Please tell us again with three more consecutive posts.

Sorry God, I didn't know You had decided to descend from the heavens and tell me what I can and cannot post.

[jedijake]

9 minutes ago, SteveJaros said:

Hopefully, Aladdin breaks the Memorial Day Weekend curse!

What specifically does the "curse" say?

[I Am]

7 hours ago, MrFanaticGuy34 said:

If you can’t enjoy just one version of the Genie...why not like both?

 

I didn't understand the concern over Will Smith playing, as he was the only thing good about "Shark Tale" and definitely has the charisma to match Robin Williams's.

Edited May 22, 2019 by I Am

[cdsacken]

11 minutes ago, Mulder said:

What was the tomatometer reveal number?

71

[Eric the Fall Guy]

7 minutes ago, I Am said:

Sorry God, I didn't know You had decided to descend from the heavens and tell me what I can and cannot post.

I'm flattered by the comparison

[Pure Spirit]

How about we see what critics are actually saying? I know, it's 2019, shaddup Grandpa, but let's check it out:

 

TheWrap:

Quote

Halfway through Guy Ritchie’s live-action remake of “Aladdin,” the title character sits uncomfortably on a Rose Parade float while Will Smith leads a ramshackle chorus in a spirited but mediocre rendition of the beloved tune “Prince Ali.”

It’s not the best scene that this new “Aladdin” has to offer, and it’s not the worst, but it’s probably the key to decoding the entire production. This isn’t a movie. It’s a chintzy revival, specifically designed to appeal to audiences who think “that looks familiar” qualifies as entertainment.

 

Chicago Tribune:

Quote

Audiences, particularly younger ones, likely will focus their love, hate or indifference on the matter of how much they like Will Smith in quick-change genie mode. He’s OK. He goes his own way in what, essentially, has been re-framed as a disposable action movie, interrupted by songs.

NyPost:

Quote

Well, the studio must’ve rubbed the heck out of its magic lamp, because the family film has unexpectedly turned out shining, shimmering, splendid. Smith, who wisely steers clear of being a Robin Williams clone, makes for a jovial emcee. Even Guy “Swept Away” Ritchie does some uncharacteristically solid work.

LaTimes

Quote

The rest of “Aladdin” cleaves to more straightforward lines, even as it tries to give the supporting characters greater complexity and political awareness to match their flesh-and-blood makeovers. Jasmine now has ambitions to defy the patriarchal order and succeed her father (Navid Negahban) as sultan, as she declares in the film’s lone new song — a courtyard power ballad that Scott delivers with show-stopping conviction. It’s a rousing display of storming-the-gates feminism, if also by now a somewhat perfunctory, performative one.

AP:

Quote

The film’s lurch from one direction to the next is capped off by a disastrous remix of “Friend Like Me” that plays over the end credits, with Smith resurrecting his ’90s friendly rapper while DJ Khaled keeps screaming “Another one!” Again, Menken, Pasek and Paul — some of our greatest theatrical songwriters — are on deck here. It’s the last of many clumsy touches, but not in a charming way.

EW:

Quote

And yet, the new Aladdin is hardly the folly that the advance bad buzz prepared us for. The candy-colored costumes and production design are stunning, Alan Menken’s songs are as infectious as ever, the dance numbers have an electric Bollywood flair, and some of the bazaar chase sequences have a Young Indiana Jones sense of rollicking, Rube Goldberg fun. But mostly it all feels too dutiful, too familiar. This is where we are in 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. 

Newsday:

Quote

In 1992, before Hollywood studios were attuned to such things, Disney’s animated “Aladdin” featured a narrator who sang about his Middle Eastern homeland, “It’s barbaric, but hey, it’s home!” Arab groups complained and Disney altered some lines in the song, but not that one. With its new, live-action “Aladdin,” Disney finally relents: The offending word “barbaric” is now “chaotic.”

And that, by and large, is the only thing in this “Aladdin” that can be called an improvement.

HollywoodReporter:

Quote

Ritchie keeps the film moving at a suitably fast pace, but everything feels obvious and telegraphed, including the obligatory monkey reaction shots designed for cheap laughs. A sequence in which the Genie saves Aladdin from death by drowning is staged so realistically that it may prove upsetting for younger audience members and seems a bit out of place amidst the magic-carpet flying and other fantastical interludes. The climactic showdown between the heroes and villains also feels overblown, more appropriate for a Marvel movie than a lighthearted Disney entertainment. Of course, none of these factors will prevent the film from raking in big bucks — although probably not as much as the upcoming redo of The Lion King.

The Guardian:

Quote

On the whole, Ritchie’s adaptation wisely does little except add human flesh to the bare bones of what was always one of Disney’s strongest stories (if you need a plot summary you must have been living in a cave for the last 1,000 years). It still holds up as a tale whose central couple’s deceptions and entrapments and self-discoveries have a pleasing symmetry to them, and whose “it’s what’s inside that counts” morals are in the right place. That’s really all anyone wanted out of a new Aladdin: not a whole new world, just a slightly updated old one.

 

Hard pass for me, although I may catch it as a rental later. If my daughter was older I might consider the theater.

[WhiteWings]

First time I read they used DJ Khaled I thought it was a joke.

Sigh...

[I Am]

4 hours ago, Poseidon said:

I don't get the praise for the Soundtrack. Speechless sounds totally out of place  and like a leftover for Eurovision Song Contest and COntender for 12th place. The other productions sound liveless and so slow. 

 

Maybe the base of expectations was low, but this is mediocre and that's it. 

Absolutely.

God is apparently displeased with me posting so much about how bad the soundtrack is, but hey - we're all sinners, huh?

 

"Speechless" sounds like an uninspired mix of music from "The Greatest Showman" and lyrics from "Let It Go." I've heard the same style song from white pop artists for the last three or four years. Disney is really following up this...

 

 

...with this insipid mess...

 

 

If you go back to the beginning, the whole staccato build up in the beginning to "The Greatest Showman" snare about a minute in is just... WTF. How can anyone seriously listen to Brad Kane's "Don't you dare close your eyes" versus Mena Massoud's and feel inspired?? And then Naomi Scott boringly blares out "A hundred thousand things to see"... Two of the best parts of the original, just flat and unflavored in this new version. The bar is in the dirt for this album, it seems.

 

If Disney is going to remake classics, then they need to be better than the classics, which, for all intents and purposes means they need to be perfect. If not, there's zero point.

[tawasal]

what happened to the ratings going from 85% to 62%?

[OncomingStorm93]

Meanwhile, we're down to 61%

[MovieMan89]

Looks like this is on track for Dumbo critical reception. I see no way it does very well given the bad pre-release buzz it already had. Under the animated one DOM seems like a lock now, which I called last year. 

Edited May 22, 2019 by MovieMan89

[John Marston]

Jesus Disney. Why can't you have some quality control on the remakes of your classics? 

[Lucas]

Yeah it's gonna go rotten.

[I Am]

4 hours ago, ban1o said:

lol y'all are joking right? This whole thread as been a toxic mess from the beginning lmao. 

I don't see anyone in the "Sonic" thread complaining about how bad that movie looks and how Paramount has handled the criticism.

 

It's just as ok for people to express displeasure and dislike for things as it is for others to express pleasure and like for them. Word to @baumer. Labeling legitimate criticism "toxic" is a puerile way to silence disagreement.

[Mulder]

It'll be above Dumbo on RT but not by much in the end.

[PNF2187]

Here's what Metacritic has to say about Aladdin (it's been in the high 50s on Metacritic for the last 3 hours, so I don't expect it to nudge too far from the 58 it's currently at):

58

ALADDIN

Out Friday, Guy Ritchie's live-action remake of the Disney classic is unnecessary "cinematic karaoke."