MovieChat Forums > Aladdin (2019) Discussion > Will Smith can't pull this off

Will Smith can't pull this off


Not funny, he doesn't seem to know if he wants to rap a song or play it straight, he never really comes off as a genuine "friend". The movie's got other problems too but he's one of the biggest.

Have a short review of this movie if anyone is interested. Enjoy! Review here - https://youtu.be/7g-elt6vBV4

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That sounds racist when you say it out loud. But thanks for the tip!

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"That sounds racist when you say it out loud."

The guy said Smith isn't funny, doesn't know whether to rap or play it straight, and never seems like a friend. There is absolutely nothing racist about any of that. You are an idiot.

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Interesting. Movie - goers who I talked to cited him as the highlight of the movie.

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Though a handful of critics are more or less echoing the OP’s sentiments, most people are indeed singling out Smith’s performance. And that’s because he did knock it out of the park as Genie! He was fantastic.

But in all fairness, this is Craig’s opinion. He usually tends to disagree with the majority on many things (note: the majority not being those on chat boards like this, lol), so it’s just like whatever. :D

I never questioned Will Smith’s casting. He simply has that larger than life personality that definitely made him suitable for this role. And he very appropriately put his own spin on Genie.

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Will had Charisma in his fresh prince days. He is long in the tooth now.

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Will Smith at age 50 seemed a little creepy as the genie pursuing the hand maiden played by Nasim Pedrad, who is 37.

Craig James has decent reviews on his channel. Can save you from seeing a film that's a bomb. I never saw the original animated Disney Aladdin. This live action remake was okay.

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Well... he did.

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It's possible that people who haven't seen the original might like his performance.

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I thought he was good.

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nice try to promote your video dude,

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Yes, and worth it. His reviews are spot on and save a lot of time. I have no part in his endeavours but why shouldn't I promote something that I think is good?

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because its stupid, selfish, narcissistic, redundant, self absorbed, and slightly retarded.

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how is it any of those things? I'm trying to get my channel off the ground, if that corresponds with a conversation had on message boards then why the hell not? It's hard enough trying to make it in writing nowadays even with promoting.

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It is selfish, einstein, but none of those other things. And selfish is not a bad thing. But keep writing, you might master it some day.

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dude im just saying what has to be said, i cant change your diapers buddy sorry

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No problem. Apology accepted.

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I agree, this role needed an actor who can go off on his own tangents like Robin Williams. Eddie Murphy should have been cast as Genie for this movie.

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Now that's a name I've not heard in a long time. A long time.

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I heard Eddie Murphy's name get thrown around recently. where was he when Disney was decided. this would have been awesome.

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Eddie Murphy only makes sense if you were simply trying to be "diverse", which is probably why they used Will Smith. The problem is Genie as done by Robin Williams had a sometimes spastic or manic quality that I don't think can be found in any comedic actors around now days, black, white or other. In which case the better approach might have been to just go in a completely different direction as Will trying to be Robbin Williams' Genie is just not going to work because he can't even hope to pull it off. And the Genie is the movie. If I asked my kids about Aladdin they would mention Genie, maybe the parrot but would probably not even know the other characters.

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Casting a black guy as the genie is being less "diverse" than casting a white guy since the Middle East has a lot more common ancestry with Africa than it does with Europe.

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Not really... when you take humans back to the 3 basic classifications, caucasoid, mongoloid and negroid; Africa was segmented into two parts the upper portion was considered Hamitic which was a subgroup of caucasoid and would have included most all of what is considered the middle east. So no, a black actor playing someone from Arabia would not be less diverse. It would actually be more like asking Tom Hanks to play Jackie Robinson. In the end the race of the actor playing Genie was not something they should have used as their token roll for a black actor or any other quota filling spot as the Genie is getting colored blue so it doesn't really matter what race the actor was from a viewers standpoint. But for some reason the studios decided they would go with a black actor, probably because while they wanted to meet their diversity quota, they also wanted to be able to hide his color as much as possible and by having him blue they were able to hide the black man so to speak.

Ignoring the race completely though, the reality is Will Smith just wasn't a good pick if you were trying to recapture the essence of the Genie that Williams created in the animated version. The closest comedian to Williams style wise was probably Jim Carey but his personal life had made him too toxic to use in a Disney movie.

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"Africa was segmented into two parts the upper portion was considered Hamitic which was a subgroup of caucasoid and would have included most all of what is considered the middle east."

Thats a gross misunderstanding of how "caucusoids" became to be. Caucasoid is obviously referring to those of the Caucasus mountains near Russia. There's no way you get Caucasoid from northern African descendants who had not ventured across the Mediterranean. I will agree that Africa segmented into two parts though. One is primarily in Africa and the other is Eastern Africa/Middle Eastern.

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Sadly you have no understanding of physical anthropology which is where the division of humans into three groups originated. You are confusing caucasian with caucasoid, the two are not interchangeable.

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Its very simple. Life began in Africa (well documented). The next place humans settled was the Middle East. Some continued north around the Mediterranean into Europe. Others continued east into Asia. Some went south of Asia from island to island throughout the western Pacific. Then the most extreme event were the people of norther Asia who crossed the land bridge into Alaska and populated what we know as North and South America before the land bridge melted and separated us for 15,000 years until Columbus arrived.

You were claiming Middle Easterners were just as disconnected from Africans as Caucasians were. Its not only factually incorrect but logistically impossible.

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I'm getting some popcorn. I'm rather enjoying your attempts at informing and dispersing knowledge on the internets. :-)

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Well your first problem is you are yammering about a PC driven theory on where humans originated that has never been proven it remains conjecture based on a few bone fragments. What are the odds that any bones of a human could survive 1000 years, let along tens of thousands of years.... Pretty damn slim. Now what would give you the best chance of having those bones survive, would it be in a humid environment or a desert? So the best option of having bone survive is going to be in a dry area of which Africa happens to be. So the odds are greatest you'll find bones in a shit hole like North Africa... But simply because you haven't found bones in other parts of the world doesn't mean that the origins weren't somewhere else. Hell for all we know the origins of man came about in Antarctica, but since no one has ever explored the island under the ice we just don't know.

But hey if you want to go on and pretend a theory is a fact then maybe you'll set some cookies for Santa this year. Sorry but when you want to deal in actual reality instead of PC poppycock let me know.. otherwise your just not worth quarrelling with.

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You must have no idea what Eddie Murphy is capable of.
And diversity has nothing to do with it.

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Very much aware of Eddie Murphy as I've watched him in everything from his early SNL and all his movies.. and unfortunately he is past his sell by date. Not that funny any more which you would realize if you looked at his last movies.

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