Aladdin (2019)
★★½ — Aladdin (2019)
Disney's live-action remake programme has been one of the defining commercial strategies of the past decade, with the studio methodically revisiting its animated back catalogue and asking whether nostalgia alone can carry a feature film. Aladdin (2019) is one of the more prominent entries in that series, a retelling of the 1992 animated classic that itself drew from the folk tales of One Thousand and One Nights. The premise is familiar enough: a quick-witted young man from the streets of the fictional city of Agrabah comes across a magic lamp containing a wish-granting genie, and finds himself tangled up in palace politics, a power-hungry villain, and a romance well above his apparent station. Walt Disney Pictures produced the film alongside Rideback, and it carries the polished but unremarkable sheen that has come to characterise much of the studio's output in this particular sub-genre.
The choice of director raised a few eyebrows at the time. Guy Ritchie made his name with fast-talking, kinetic British crime films (his work in that vein, including Snatch (2000), is about as far from Agrabah as you can get), before broadening his range with blockbuster fare. Whether a family fantasy musical represented a natural next step or an odd sideways move was a genuine question going in, and it coloured a lot of the early conversation around the project. The film runs to 127 minutes, uses extensive CGI to reconstruct the world of the original, and incorporates the Alan Menken songs that audiences already know by heart, with some new material added for this version. That familiarity is both the film's greatest asset and the thing that makes scrutiny of it so difficult to avoid.
The cast is a mix of relative newcomers and established names. Mena Massoud, in the title role, had little major screen work behind him at the time of release, while Naomi Scott had built a steady profile before stepping into the role of Princess Jasmine. Marwan Kenzari plays the scheming Grand Vizier Jafar, and Navid Negahban appears as the Sultan. The name that drew the most attention, though, was Will Smith as the Genie, a role that invited inevitable comparison with Robin Williams's iconic vocal performance in the original. Smith has shown considerable range across his career, from dramatic turns to broad comedy (you can see some of that range discussed in the site's reviews of I Am Legend (2007) and Suicide Squad (2016)), and the question of whether that range would be enough here was the one nobody could quite stop asking.
Let’s be honest: casting anyone as the Genie after Robin Williams was always going to be a losing battle. Will Smith steps in with charisma, energy, and that trademark smirk, doing his best to make the role his own, and he’s not bad, exactly. He brings a modern, laid-back cool and manages a few solid laughs. But he’s still Will Smith playing Will Smith. There’s no manic genius, no whirlwind of impressions, no soul-stirring shift from comedy to warmth. Williams wasn’t just performing, he was channelling pure, unpredictable magic. No amount of blue paint can fill that void. The rest of the remake follows the now-familiar Disney playbook: step by step recreations of the animated classic, glossy CGI replacing hand-drawn charm, and a few awkward attempts to “update” the story without changing much at all. Mena Massoud is likeable as Aladdin, Naomi Scott sings well as Jasmine, but the chemistry between them is thin and the romance feels rushed. The expanded role for Jasmine, giving her dreams beyond the palace, is well-intentioned, but it’s tacked on rather than woven into the story. Visually, it’s clean and bright, but soulless. The magic carpet still has charm, the songs are competently performed, and “Prince Ali” is a lively set piece, but it’s all so safe, so calculated. The sense of wonder, the spontaneity and the heart of the original are all lost in translation. It’s not offensive, not a disaster, just another in a long line of hollow, by-the-numbers remakes. Technically fine, emotionally flat. They kept the tunes and the plot, but forgot the magic. Another lifeless echo of something that once sparkled.
I find myself going back to that word: hollow. It keeps fitting. There is something genuinely dispiriting about watching a film tick every box, hit every mark, and still arrive at the end feeling like a colour photocopy of a watercolour painting. The craft is there on the surface, the budget is visible in every frame, and yet it leaves you with nothing to carry home. For me, the live-action Disney remakes as a whole raise a question that nobody at the studio seems particularly interested in answering: if the original already exists, and is still perfectly watchable, what is this actually for? Aladdin (2019) doesn't answer that. It just joins the queue.
Rating: ★★½ | Year: 2019 | Watched: 2025-08-06
Trailer
▶ Watch the official trailer for Aladdin (2019) on YouTube
Where to watch
Watch in the UK
Stream: Disney Plus
Rent: Apple TV Store · Rakuten TV · Amazon Video · Sky Store
Buy: Apple TV Store · Rakuten TV · Amazon Video · Sky Store
Physical: Amazon UK · Zavvi
Watch in the US
Stream: Disney Plus
Rent: Amazon Video · Apple TV Store · Google Play Movies · YouTube
Buy: Amazon Video · Apple TV Store · Google Play Movies · YouTube
Physical: Amazon US
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Related on Movies With Macca
More from Guy Ritchie: Snatch (2000)
More with Will Smith: Suicide Squad (2016) · Shark Tale (2004) · I Am Legend (2007) · Men in Black 3 (2012)
More from the 2010s: Wonder (2017) · Beautiful Boy (2018) · The Witch (2015) · What We Do in the Shadows (2014)
More adventure: Alice in Wonderland (1951) · The Eagle (1925) · Louisiana Story (1948) · The General (1926)
More fantasy: Viy (1967) · Alice in Wonderland (1951) · Mononoke the Movie: The Phantom in the Rain (2024) · Mononoke the Movie: Chapter II - The Ashes of Rage (2025)
