Emily Williams

This movie is really prime 90s nostalgia. If you were a fan of the original, this is a must see. They did change a couple pieces of the storyline but I think it improved the characters and explanations overall. I wasn’t mad about any of the changes unlike how I’ve been for some of the other live action Disney movies. I might actually like the way that they wrote some of these characters more than I liked the originals—especially Jasmine. As for the songs, Jasmine and Aladdin’s songs were perfectly acceptable—I wouldn’t say better than the original, but fine. Jasmine’s solo song was a standout and I think that was a good addition. They had good voices and I think were good choices for the roles. Now—to Will Smith’s performance—it was just different than the original. They focused much less on the voice acting/different voices for the genie, which Robin Williams excelled at, and made the genie a little more serious and hip hop. The songs lacked some of the pizzazz and humor of the original as a result—especially “Friend Like Me”. Some portions were even entirely changed to get away from the different voices/accents that Robin Williams could do and opted for just different dialogue in those sections that catered to Will Smith. I personally much prefer Robin Williams’ portrayal if I had to pick, but I see why they went the route they did. They’d rather do something different than repeat Robin William’s performance (and probably not do it as well anyway). Will Smith still did a pretty good job, it wasn’t horrible, and the genie managed to have a cool/dry humor about him. Overall, I’d go see this again and I definitely think it’s worth a trip to the movie theater. If nothing else, it’s a visually stunning movie that brings you back to your childhood and finds a way to make you want to sing along.