With the bizarre appearance of Will Smith's Genie considerably altered from the first trailer, due to more refined CGI, some critics assured potential viewers that Smith's take on the character so memorably voiced by Robin Williams in the 1992 original animated version, is one of the film's least concerns. Entertainment Weekly believed "Like Dumbo, the new movie is a big, lavish fantasia that no one asked for or particularly needs. There are no new wrinkles, no real new take. Even the original's more objectionable Middle Eastern characterizations are left untouched - the one place that it could have really used an update. It still has more stereotypes than you can shake a scimitar at. 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';. In the same vein, The Los Angeles Times agreed "No one really needs this mostly middling, fitfully funny and never unpleasant movie. And the movie itself seems cheerfully aware of that fact as it deftly lifts lines, beats, characters and songs from its 1992 predecessor, every so often punching up the comedy, wrinkling the plot and injecting a dash of politically corrective subtext'.
The Wrap noted "The original Aladdin was an innovative motion picture, heralding a new era of CG-assisted animation and celebrity stunt-casting. It was bold and exciting. The remake rehashes the original in a pleasing but perfunctory way: It's extremely satisfying to see these roles finally filled by non-white actors, but the movie still feels like a wholly western interpretation of one of the tales from One Thousand and One Nights. The protagonists speak with the most American accents in the cast, the musical numbers are almost exclusively in the Broadway tradition, and apparently, nobody thought that Smith wearing shackles and cheerfully living to make life easier for his "master' would have a disturbing subtext. Or, rather, text''.
IndieWire were caught unawares - "The most surprising part of Guy Ritchie's Aladdin isn't that it's far better (more fun, more frisky, more coherent) than a string of maligned trailers have let on, it's that no one ever got the bright idea to rename the whole thing Genie and turn all of the film's attention on Will Smith. While early looks at the film - especially scenes that focused on Smith turning on the bravado with a vibrant song-and-dance - were received badly enough that both Ritchie and Smith were asked to respond to the critical jabs, within the context of Ritchie's warmly silly film, they work. They really, really work. That's not to say that Ritchie's live-action treatment of the beloved animated classic doesn't have other elements to recommend it, but Smith puts on such an outsized performance that it's easy for him to overshadow its smaller joys - and when Genie is suddenly silenced in a limp third act, the entire film suffers'.
Film found fault with the process rather than the star, saying " …where hand-drawn animation once was able to bring to life such impossible wonders with fluidity and dexterity, CG has rendered it mostly distracting, if not outright unnerving. Smith, as energetic as he was in his early movie-star days, isn't able to overcome the intensely creepy sense that the CG version of the Genie just doesn't look right. When the Genie transforms himself into a human, it's all well and good; when he's CG, the effect calls to mind the uncomfortable qualities of Tom Hanks in The Polar Express. It just looks wrong and unpleasant'.
But with Smith largely acquitted, those critics not kindly disposed to the pic knew who to blame, Associated Press insisting “It's pretty clear after watching the new live-action Aladdin that doubts about Will Smith's casting as the Genie are overblown. It's the guy behind the camera who should be doubted. And stuffed into a small lamp forever. Guy Ritchie - that lover of gritty gangsters and violent action - was always an odd choice to helm a big Disney romantic musical and proves utterly the wrong guy here. Aladdin, in his hands, is more like The Mummy than Frozen. This is an Aladdin with a torture scene and pointlessly artful fast-slow-motion action scenes”, a sentiment shared by The Chicago Tribune, saying the film " …feels pointless. It's cinematic karaoke. It's an ice show without the ice. It's also and foremost an example of directorial miscasting, for this is a Guy Ritchie musical - a frantic, Kismet-adjacent musical - made with the lightness of touch and blithe cinematic charm you'd expect from the man behind Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels and the steampunk Sherlock Holmes pictures'.
But not everybody was so enchanted, Time Out New York warning "When [film] gets it right, it propels you high on a magic-carpet ride. But the odd bum note thrusts you straight out of Arabia and back into your cinema seat', and Screen International adding "Despite Aladdin's occasionally arresting moments, this remake's most potent element is its intentional air of déjà vu'. The aptly-named ScreenCrush dismissed it with "The nicest thing I can say about 2019's Aladdin is in its best moments it reminded me of a movie I liked a lot as a kid'.
Aladdin opens almost globally, including 4476 screens in the US, over the period of 22nd / 24th May, the one major exception being Japan, receiving the film on 7th June.