Disney continues their adaptations of classic animated feature into live actions productions with Aladdin from 1992 now exploding across silver screen as a ‘bollywood’ inspired musical staring Will Smith and a cast of new faces. I am a major fan of the original animated Aladdin, I was blown away in the theater, grabbed the soundtrack at once, added to that with an album from Lea Salonga who provided Princess Jasmine’s singing voice, and of course the DVD. To give the 2019 feature a fair shake I did my best to set aside expectation and memories, judging the film on its own merits but the very nature of the movie and its production history makes that nearly impossible.

Perhaps the most famous stand out element of Aladdin 1992 is Robin Williams’ memorable vocal performance as the fantastic Genie but critical to that character and its integration is that fact that writers from the very start envision Williams performing the part and when he signed to do that molded more of the script as well as allowing serious latitude in Williams famous propensity for going off-script, something that became a seri9ous challenge for the animators. The match of concept to performer is a large part of the alchemy of film production. Will Smith in Aladdin 2019 has been hampered by the fact that not only will his performance be compared to Williams but that too much of the original Genie character remains in the script, forcing Smith to perform a character that was designed for a singular performer. At times this is a great weight holding back Smith from his own winning charm and screen charisma and at other points in the film he’s given a character more tuned to his performance and there he soars but the see-sawing between the two styles hurts the overall production and is unfair the Smith.

Sadly the other weight dragging down this movie is Mena Massoud as titular character Aladdin. let me clear it is not because Massoud is a bad actor or even a bad singer, were he paired with actors and singer of a comparable quality I doubt I would have seen him as a fault in this movie but caught between Will Smith and Naomi Scott his performance suffers. Naomi Scott is the break out actor of this movie. She is compelling, convincing, and her vocal talents as a singer are on a par with Lea Salonga’s iconic and mesmerizing voice. She commands the scenes she appears in, delivers dialog that at time is written flat with a realized character’s voice, and project a charisma that filled the theater, compared to her quite a few actors would have been found wanting.

Aside from those hard to ignore elements Aladdin 2019 over all is a decent film. Not one that I loved but certainly an enjoyable evening at the movies. The major beats and story elements remain unchanged, though a few have been given a twist. Jasmine now instead of existing solely as a prize has her own goals and gifts beyond wanting select her own husband and the reason for her isolation in the palace is more fully developed as part of her back-story. Jafar is given a little more to want but frankly it wasn’t quit enough and I think another writing pass on this character, just a few lines here and there, would have done wonders for fleshing him out. The CGI animation is spot on and the CGI tiger and monkey are amazing. A new subplot has been added concerning the new character of Dalia, Jasmine’s hand maiden, but essentially this is the same story but expanded and now with impressive effects. Aladdin  2019 is worth seeing at least once but it is unlikely to find a home in my video library.