Genie

This is a version of a review airing on ABC Victoria's Statewide Mornings program on December 7, 2023.

(PG) ★★

Director: Sam Boyd. 

Cast: Melissa McCarthy, Paapa Essiedu, Denée Benton, Jordyn McIntosh, Alan Cumming, Marc Maron, Luis Guzman.

"A podcast, you say? No way!"

Michael Mann remade his own telemovie LA Takedown as Heat. Michael Haneke made two versions of his film Funny Games, 10 years apart. Cecil B. Demille filmed The Ten Commandments twice, 33 years apart.

It happens more often than you think (here's a cool list with even more examples that I absolutely pilfered for my opening paragraph). Even Hitchcock did it.

We can add Richard Curtis to the list. His latest script Genie is an update of his 1991 telemovie Bernard & The Genie, which boasted the immaculate cast of Alan Cumming, Rowan Atkinson, and Lenny Henry (sidenote: Cumming returns, not as the hero this time, but the grumpy boss originally played by Atkinson).

In this new version, the titular wish-granter is played by Melissa McCarthy (not Lenny Henry), who is accidentally summoned by overworked museum curator Bernard (Essiedu) just as his wife and daughter are moving out and he loses his job. 

There are limitations to the Genie's powers, but Bernard will do all he can with his infinite wishes (it's not three in this version) to win his family back and find true happiness... just in time for Christmas.

Genie is like an old car. It takes a long time to warm up, and when it starts moving it's creaky and tired as we go through the rigmarole of yes, the Genie is real, and this is how wishes work. On top of this, McCarthy's Midwest accent doesn't exactly fit with her thousands-of-years-old backstory. The film's first half grates as the story's gears clunk and grind, wobbling all over the road.

Around the middle, a subplot involving an unwitting art theft takes the story in a strange yet interesting direction, and things speed up and get moving at a better pace. A midway scene involving Bernard's family getting a real Christmas wish is amusing too, and it helps to gain some goodwill for Bernard and the film itself.

Essiedu is also extremely likeable, which helps overcome the flat and lacklustre nature of the script. By the end, there's enough of a spark in proceedings to make it bearable, and the denouement satisfactory. Even McCarthy manages to make her role work - in fact, by the end she seems well suited to it, Midwestern accent not withstanding.

It's not great though. The jokes are soft and sparse, and there's no shaking the tiredness of it all - this is the thousandth genie fable, mixed with the thousandth family Christmas comedy-drama. The combination never feels fresh, instead it feels like the most the uninspiring pieces of each part. 

It's not bad enough to make you wish for your time back, but you won't be adding it to your list of favourite Christmas movies any time soon.