Disney originals VS Disney live action movie reviews

For my Media working method's class I did a research on the Disney live action movies. For the sake of the research I watched overall six movies (would've watched more if I had the time) - three original animated Disney movies and three Disney live action remakes of those originals. So I got to watch Cinderella, Beauty and the Beast and Aladdin... basically two times.

Before this research I had only seen three live action movies Maleficent, Cinderella and Beauty and the Beast (if we don't count the 90's 101 Dalmatians and its sequel) - so basically the Aladdin's live action was the only actually new movie to me. But I wanted to refresh my memory and watch Cinderella and Beauty and the Beast again after some years.

So, knowing the original Disney movies by heart I decided to watch the live actions first so I wouldn't lose my focus on them in during the watching, like I did with the original cartoons. I took these notes down as I watched the movies and for this post I added a short summary of the movie with a grade.

Cinderella (1950)

Pros

• Short and simple intro with a little narration

• Memorable and beautiful songs

• Expressive characters

• Emotional scenes translate to the audience better with the colors, music and voices

• The jokes are still funny even after 70 years

+/-

• Classically more cartoonish and aimed for kids

• Not for people who don’t enjoy musicals

Cons

• Many scenes are focused around side and supporting characters, and take time from Cinderella’s own struggles and growth as a character

• Children of today might find the rhythm of the movie boring

• Prince had no personality whatsoever (he yawned like once and sang a song)

In conclusion: Cinderella makes me laugh more today than it did when I was still a kid. It's done beautifully and the songs won't leave your head. 8/10

Cinderella (2015)

Pros

• Cate Blanchett is perfect in her role as the elegant but harsh stepmother 

• Tells the background story more in depth and Cinderella’s struggles being nice, even to bad people

• More depth for the prince as well

• Interesting colour palette in costumes

+/-

• Cate Blanchett steals the show with her powerful character

• More “realistic” and serious setting

Cons

• Too busy with all the details

• Animation effects aren’t that impressive

• “Action” sequences felt unnecessary and long

• Music isn’t really memorable

• Too much narration for my taste

• Left with an even and lukewarm feeling

In conclusion: A mediocre Cinderella story in a pretty, classical setting. Would watch again only to see Cate Blanchett in her gorgeous role though. 5,5/10

Beauty and the Beast (1991)

Pros

• Intense, emotional music

• Prologue done with a simple but beautiful way

• Darkness adds extra thrills to the scary and intense scenes

• Felt magical with the very “extra” sequences

• Actually funny

+/-

• Contrasts between comical and scary scenes balance each other

• The 3D effects blend in well with the 2D animation quite well for its time

Cons

• Sometimes animation drops quality wise, but doesn’t affect the experience

In conclusion: A story about Stockholm syndrome wrapped in a colorful musical with beautiful songs and visuals. 9/10

Beauty and the Beast (2017)

Pros

• Beautiful setting

• Took inspiration from the original fairytale (Belle’s dad picking a rose for her from his trip)

• New songs

• Foreshadows some things from the start which was a nice little touch

• Did have some funny jokes

• The side characters had more at stake compared to the original

• Not half bad CGi

• All in all added new elements and changed some details in the story which were nice and refreshing to see

Cons

• Some musical numbers seemed to lack energy

• Some scenes would’ve needed more time to gain more emotional value that they clearly tried to seek

In conclusion: All in all a fine movie, even though it only had half of the energy of the original movie. 7/10

Aladdin (1992)

Pros

• Amazing, unforgettable songs

• Rich and intense color palettes

• Extraordinary, even scary atmosphere at times

• Funny jokes

• Story goes forward in a good pace and doesn’t let you get bored

+/-

• Finnish dub is better than the original, don’t @ me

Cons

• Some 3D effects are a bit outdated

• Some Genie’s celebrity references might not be understood by audiences outside USA and are overall outdated

• Some of the jokes try too hard

In conclusion: An entertaining movie in all its aspects: characters, songs, story, visuals, jokes... Nearly a perfect package. 9,5/10

Aladdin (2019)

Pros

• Cute intro/opening credits summarizes the main characters well and makes you feel nostalgic

• Overall very colorful movie

• New songs

• Made me chuckle a few times

• Abu and Carpet were animated better than I expected

• I actually liked that they discarded Aladdin being in the prison and Jafar acting the old man - it gave Jafar and Aladdin more personal “bond” (even if it was very little)

• Maybe not perfect, but Will Smith was definitely a fun and good casting choice for Genie

• Sweet ending had a nice connection to the intro

+/-

• English (the original language) seemed oddly weird considering the setting, but what else can you expect from a Disney movie, really

Cons

• The story starts off quite fast…

• … but still feels like it’s taking too much time to get to the “actual” story

• I wished for different actors for Jasmine and Jafar

• Some of the edits and transitions seemed hasty and cheap

• I started missing the original movie’s sweet and silly sultan (aka. my favorite character in the animated one) who in this was mostly just meh

In conclusion: A good remake for the grown up audience who grew up with Aladdin. I just wished they had tried even more and maybe give the production more time to polish it - I could even call it "diamond in the rough", ehehehe. 7/10