A good movie with a painfully shaky start

Rating: 5/10 (8 January 2020)

I shall be writing this review without any regard to the existence of the original animated film.
Firstly, the genie. Despite being portrayed by a real life Will Smith, has an extraordinary level of animation on his blue face - which unfortunately falls into Jeff Bridges in Tron Legacy / Billy Connolly in The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies levels of uncanny valley. But with that out of consideration, Smith is great in the role especially considering the shoes he had to fill.
Mena Massoud portrayed Aladdin adequately, however the fleshed-out core of the character was missing in a few scenes, and it made him appear slightly two dimensional.
Naomi Scott was perfectly believable as a princess making her speechless song even more powerful but Nasim Pedrad was a complete scene stealer, and her interactions with the Genie were a highlight of the movie.
Jafar was an interesting character, whilst the cruelty of his actions and ambition was well portrayed by Marwan Kenzari. The youthful, soft-spoken, manicured beard aura - did not truly fit a main antagonist, which weakened the whole film.
Regarding the movie itself, it started off extremely poorly and I can understand the other reviews of people that decided to leave after 30 minutes, because I almost did the same. But after the grandeur parade scene, the movie definitely raised up a few levels of quality and by the end, I was enjoying it quite a lot. Which makes it rather difficult to score, as Aladdin went from a 2/10 disaster, to a respectable 7/10.
So I'll go for a reasonable 5/10, but I really did enjoy the end. That said, I think children will love this film.