#Aladin will smith full
#Aladin will smith series

On top of that, the Genie now gets a love interest, played to hilarious effect by the underrated (and sadly underused) Saturday Night Live alumni Nasim Pedrad. It adds a new layer of empathy to the Genie’s plight: All-consuming power is nothing if it’s all you have. It’s not only an issue of Aladdin pretending to be something he isn’t it’s that the power bestowed upon him by the Genie will never truly satisfy him and chasing that will only destroy him (a lesson Jafar never learns). The new film is smart in its fleshing out of this dynamic, having the Genie further explain not only why it’s morally questionable to do something like fake being a prince to impress a woman, but how such a thirst for power can sap you of your own self-worth and understanding of what really matters.

The Genie has always acted as a moral arbiter to Aladdin as his eagerness to impress Jasmine sent him down an ethically tricky road. This time around, the Genie also gets his own romantic and emotional development separate from Aladdin and his desires for freedom. The film is so delighted to have Will Smith doing his thing that he even gets an end credits song (featuring DJ Khaled), harkening back to the days of Men in Black and Wild Wild West. This Genie is still the showboating performer of the animated film but with a party boy edge that has echoes of the Fresh Prince, which makes him an appropriately fun wing-man for Aladdin himself. He’s not afraid to be uncool and that somehow only makes him even cooler (something else very few actors working today can pull off). His frenetic energy allows him to bounce off the walls – literally, in this case – with boundless enthusiasm. He’s fast-talking with a quip for every situation. It’s in that bled of unabashedly goofy and old-school roguishness where Smith is unbeatable as an actor, and for the most part, Aladdin is smart enough to play around with that.Īll the things that audiences love about Will Smith are present in his performance as the Genie. There are few leading men working today who could sell a moment so silly and yet so undeniably cool as Smith punching an alien in the face in Independence Day. Will Smith has been an audience favorite since the early ‘90s, and even in terrible movies, he always manages to grab the spotlight and remind viewers why they love him so much. Given how many column inches had been written to trying to understand the admittedly questionable CGI of Smith as a giant blue version of himself, it remains a delight to see one of the last remaining A-List movie-stars light up the screen with their exclusive charm in a way that only he can.įor the majority of the film, Disney let Will Smith give a great performance, but now and then they try to make him be Robin Williams, and that’s where the film falters.

#Aladin will smith series

At the heart of that are a series of charismatic performance but of course all eyes fall upon Will Smith as the Genie. While it still falls into several of the traps predecessors like the Beauty and the Beast remake did by adhering too closely to the original movie, Aladdin justifies its own existence by fleshing out the story in ways that both make sense and add new layers to the familiar. RELATED: Aladdin 2019 Cast Compared To The Original Animationįortunately, Aladdin manages to overcome a large amount of the pessimism surrounding it this is one of Disney’s more vibrant and narratively interesting remakes. Given Disney’s tendency to have these remakes be close to shot-for-shot recreations of their source material, the possibility of Smith having to impersonate Williams proved problematic for many.

#Aladin will smith full

On top of ushering in a new age of celebrity dominated voice performances, Williams' now iconic turn, chock full of fourth wall breaking jokes, pop culture gags, and frenetic slapstick energy, is completely inimitable. The issue of redundancy was made all the stronger in regards to Aladdin because that film is so wholly defined by the scene-stealing work of Robin Williams as the Genie. The studio’s steady wave of live-action remakes has brought them billions of dollars in profits and a renewed sense of brand awareness for a younger generation, but little in terms of critical merit. The announcement of Smith’s casting in Guy Ritchie’s take on one of Disney’s most popular films came in a wave of skepticism, both for the choice of Smith and for the mere existence of the remake in the first place. Will Smith gives a fun performance as the Genie in Disney’s live-action remake of Aladdin, but only when he steps out of the shadow of Robin Williams.