A whole new ‘Aladdin,’ and it’s fantastic

Published May 28, 2019 6:15pm ET



Hold onto something as you board Guy Ritchie’s magical “Aladdin.” The live-action remake of Disney’s 1992 animated classic is stellar and uniquely speaks to a company evolving with the times.

We are all familiar with the story of Aladdin: An orphaned pickpocket, Aladdin (Mena Massoud), turns into a prince when he discovers a genie (Will Smith) in a lamp in the cave of wonders. But, after that premise, Ritchie takes us on a relatively new journey incorporating a new romance between Princess Jasmine’s handmaiden (the always-funny Nasim Pedrad) and the Genie, a marketplace Color Run, and Jafar (Marwan Kenzari) at one point channeling his inner Game of Thrones Bran for an Iago-magic-carpet-ride chase. There are Bollywood-style dance sequences, plenty of monkeys and elephants — get excited, Yashar — and a Smith performance that would make Robin Williams proud.

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