Dumbo & Aladdin

Since I no longer have Tuesday nights free, due to a bad management position at a location where I work part-time, I don't go to movies as often as I do.

Since the last update, I have seen Dumbo and Aladdin.

For Dumbo, as I have never seen the original, I can't compare with it.  But I found that the acting was nice, it was heartfelt and warm and there were moments that were sad.  I think that the story was changed a bit though, to give that classic heartfelt feel good Disney ending.  But essentially, Mrs. Jumbo, a circus elephant gives birth to her baby.  However, you have your classic idiot who doesn't understands crap and is basically killed when Mrs. Jumbo comes to her baby's rescue.  But then it's deemed Mrs. Dumbo is a threat and is taken back by her original buyer.

So, the story is about Dumbo learning about his ability to fly and the two children (Millie and Joe Ferrier) who is helping Dumbo find his mother.  And basically the majority of the adults not believing them, or trusting them, or just doing it for money.  And of course, the added beauty is the Tim Burton touch to it, which was a nice added touch.

Last night, I went to see Aladdin, featuring Will Smith, Mena Massoud, Naomi Scott, Marwen Kenzari, Navid Negahban and Nasim Pedrad as the Genie, Aladdin, Jasmine, Jafar, the Sultan and Dalia respectively.

To start, I would say that I felt this live-action was not as good as Beauty and the Beast live action.  Though perhaps it was set up to fail, because Beauty and the Beast was just so well received.  Essentially, it is a similar formula as last time.  Take the story, do it with live actors, and tweak it and change it a bit (so a bit of a twist) but not change it so much that the whole story changes.  In general though, I felt that the arrangements were a bit flat...  Perhaps there was a bit too much auto-tuning and Will Smith already inherited a bad spot since it's practically impossible to be Robin Williams, or replace him.  Though I do think that Will Smith tried to make Genie his own and still give him the flair, the sass and the funny character that he was.

Was the movie fun?  Yes.  Was it as good as Beauty and the Beast?  In my opinion no.  Is it worth seeing in the theatres?  Yes, because there are nice parkour and chase sequences that Disney has decided to implement into the movie.  (Well, they have to - the classic Aladdin starts off with Aladdin being given chase).  Did this movie make me cry?  No...  Unlike in Beauty and the Beast.  Was Jafar weak?  No...  Though it was hard to imagine such a young and handsome man as a power hungry villain.  Though, I felt that Jafar didn't get as much screen time as in the previous animated version.  (But I'd have to rewatch that).  And I imagined Jafar to be an older man from my recollections of the animated feature.  My one big peeve is that there was a classic line from Genie in the animated version that didn't make it into the live action one.  I won't divulge it here, because it would be a spoiler, but I think it's a pretty classic one that most people remember.