‘Genie’ Review: Melissa McCarthy Stars in a Fairy-Tale Comedy Written by Richard Curtis, but It’s No ‘Love Actually.’ More Like ‘Elf’ Meets ‘Love Sort Of’

variety.com:

Owen Gleiberman Chief Film Critic Genies, at least in pop culture, have long been comic foils. Way back in 1940, in “The Thief of Bagdad,” Rex Ingram played Djinn, the movie’s larger-than-life genie — 100 feet tall in his ponytail and red diaper ­— as a sly, laughing soul man of lighthearted effrontery.

The surrealist ’60s sitcom “I Dream of Jeannie” featured Barbara Eden, in diaphanous harem silks, as a magical servant/housewife, blinking her eyes to teleport her clueless “master” out of trouble.

And Robin Williams’ vocal performance as the Genie in “Aladdin” may have come closer than any of his other film performances to channeling Williams the free-associational joke geyser.

So in “Genie,” when Melissa McCarthy pops out of a jewel box and reveals herself to be an ancient granter of wishes named Flora, it’s hardly a surprise that 1) the character is a complete lark, and 2) the whole joke is that Flora, though she hasn’t been let out of her box for 2,000 years, is nothing more or less than the latest incarnation of Melissa McCarthy’s quizzical air-popped hostility. (Presented with a slice of pizza, she says, “This is just a triangle of…red bread!”) “Genie” was written by Richard Curtis (it’s a remake of his 1991 British television film “Bernard and the Genie”), but the movie, while set in New York at Christmastime, is no “Love Actually.” It’s more like “Elf” crossed with “Love Sort Of.” When Flora, whose full name is Flora Gwendolyn Lockheed Firepit McCallister, says those magic words “Your wish is my command,” she’s speaking to Bernard (Paapa Essiedu), who accidentally summoned her out of that box.