3 things I noticed after watching Aladdin (2019) the second time

During this quarantine period, I’ve been rewatching a lot of my old favorites on Disney Plus. I came across Aladdin, the live-action version, several times and skipped over it because I’d been there done that, wrote a whole post regarding the downfalls of remade and revamped movies because of it.

However, with more time to relax, I decided to watch the film again after skipping over it a few times because I kept popping up on my screen selections.

So what is Aladdin (2019) like the second time around?

Simply put, Aladdin (2019) is funny.

Jafar would have settled for Jasmine.

The main themes are still relevant. Jafar was a desperate man for power, but also apparently desperate for love. Why else would he want to marry Jasmine when she clearly hated his guts. In my opinion, after she said that an animal would be a better ruler than him and exhibited no interest in what so ever he would have been better off playing his position a little longer rather than forcing his objective.

That’s what got him caught up. He wasn’t in danger of losing his thrown until Aladdin came through and stole her heart. Jafar wasn’t trying to do power-play. He was just desperate for Jasmine’s affections.

But you knew that already.

Live-action Aladdin and Jasmine were very charming together. I found my self awing at them when they were on screen. I didn’t cringe once.

And honestly, not to harp on Jafar, but we all know that he is the reason Aladdin is ever relevant after Jasmine goes back to the palace. Jafar comes off delusional at times, but he convinced Aladdin to go into the Cave of Wonders by using realism in the movie, not just selling fantasies like in the original 1992 movie.

That was refreshing.

Nobody could anyone see Iago?

One thing that did peeve me off again was the live-action animals. Iago and Abu are much better additions to the cast when they have personalities.

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Also, nobody paid attention to the stupid bird eavesdropping. There was no excuse. In the real world, if you see a bird fly up, you look. Iago was always around, and no one got suspicious, no even Genie.

But, I guess it wasn’t too bad considering, though it left something to be desired.

Abu should have been caught sooner!

But the main thing I wanted to mention was that Abu touched several things in the Cave of Wonders before Aladdin even saw the lamp. For years, I’ve been wondering why the magic carpet didn’t count as a touch that would have set off the angry lion spirit guarding the treasure, but in the live-action movie, Abu bumped into a few things, and nothing happened.

Did the lion spirit give them some get out of jail free cards, and Abu’s grab of the ruby was that last strike?

Lastly, the first time I watched this, I was probably too focused on Blue Will Smith to enjoy him, but the second time I thought he was hilarious. I laughed a lot. Not to mention, Genie dropped a lot of gems on Aladdin.

My favorite line was, “there isn’t enough money and power to ever satisfy you.”

Well, my real favorite line in the movie was when Aladdin and Genie walked into Jasmine’s party, and Genie says, “Just act like you do at a party,” and Aladdin says, “I’ve never been to a party,” and then Genie says, “Uh uh you got to go home you not messing up my night!”

I laughed so hard! You might need to watch it for yourself to appreciate it.

Most of the comedy landed well. I think the first time I watched it, I was overloaded. The news about Mulan was released. Lion King wasn’t good. And it seemed like everything was being remade.

Maybe I’ll start watching remakes months after the hype is over. Maybe that will give me a more favorable reaction.