COLUMN: Genie

It only took 50-some-odd years, but I might be turning into my father.

There are some who would say that's a good thing. My dad is, after all, a superhero. He built the house I grew up in. I can barely build a sandwich. When I bought my house, Dad single-handedly finished my basement for me. About the only thing I'm capable of finishing is a box of donuts, and now I have a team of doctors preventing me from even doing that.

I lucked out in the dad lottery. I'm sure everybody thinks their dad is the best dad of all time. You're all wrong. If you don't believe me, feel free to challenge my dad to a no-holds-barred cage match. Unfortunately, my father won't be able to attend because he'll be too busy pointing out the structural deficiencies in the cage and volunteering to design a new one. And yes, it will likely be hand-carved and made of wood.

But there's one thing my dad can't do. For as long as I can remember, my dad can't sit through a comedy on TV. Dad's favorite entertainment is usually any movie involving guns, wars, spies, tanks, and/or explosions. This contrasts greatly with my mom, who brought me up on a steady diet of romantic comedies and sitcom silliness. When dad had the helm, he would want to watch an entire movie about some Bridge over the River Kwai. When mom controlled the TV, the Love Boat soon would be making another run. And since the only OTHER thing my dad can't seem to do is operate a remote control, mom usually won those battles.

When a silly comedy comes on TV, you can actually witness my dad getting flustered in real time. If a hapless character gets embarassed on-screen, dad gets embarassed, too. If the romantic hero gets put in an awkward situation, my dad starts to fidget. I'm pretty sure he's incapable of suspending disbelief long enough to laugh at anything silly or ridiculous. Invariably, he will stand up, say something like, "I can't watch this nonsense," and leave the room, often to bury himself in a book of wholesome family entertainment wherein some loose cannon on a lone search for justice single-handedly lays waste to an international terrorist organization. You know, believable stuff.

I'm Team Dad all the way, but my taste in pop culture has always been more in line with my mom's. I love silly romantic comedies and bad sitcoms. I'm the weirdo who secretly watches Hallmark Christmas movies every year, no matter how groan-worthy they are. But the older I get, the more my brain is getting incapable of suspending disbelief. I think I might be slowly turning into my dad.

This year, there was one new holiday movie I was eagerly awaiting: "Genie." After all, how could you possibly lose when you put comic powerhouse Melissa McCarthy into a movie written by Richard Curtis, the genius behind such classics as "Four Weddings and a Funeral," "Notting Hill," "Bridget Jones' Diary," and the perennial Christmas favorite, "Love Actually"?

Spoiler: It's possible. "Genie" does NOT capture magic in a bottle.

The plotline is simple enough: Bernard is a hard-working antiquities expert whose life is falling apart. When his evil boss forces him to work late and miss his daughter's birthday, his wife leaves him. The next day, he loses his job. Despondent, Bernard absent-mindedly opens an ancient box he'd brought home from work and unleashes Flora, a 2000-year-old genie (played with the usual gusto by McCarthy) who grants Bernard endless wishes.   

Comedy gold, right? From here, the movie could practically write itself. Obviously, Bernard's going to get his family back in the end and holiday merriment will prevail. Along the way, Bernard's probably going to learn a lesson about materialism and discover that money and power can't buy happiness, yada yada yada. But the movie falls apart quickly.

For one, Flora's just spent 2000 years in a box. We get a glimpse of her early days as some kind of feral warrior before a sorceror condemns her to the genie life. Yet when she pops out the box, she speaks perfect English. I was okay with that, because, hey, genie magic, I guess. But she ALSO somehow knows American slang and colloquialisms, which is just silly. Also, she's been in a box for 2000 years with no exposure to modern society. New York City should terrify her. Heck, electric lighting alone should terrify her. Instead, all we get is a tired joke where she doesn't know what hand sanitizer is and tries to eat it.

At one point, Bernard wishes for a pizza from his favorite eatery and it magically appears, despite a multitude of jokes about Flora not knowing what pizza is. You shouldn't be able to have it both ways. Either you're omniscient and come out of the bottle knowing everything about everything, or you should be woefully clueless about everything and screw it all up. This is Genie 101 stuff, people.

It reminds me, in a not-great way, of the only movie I have ever fallen asleep in a theater to: the horrible Will Ferrell/Nicole Kidman remake of "Bewitched," a rare mis-step from the late, legendary Nora Ephron. There's a scene in the beginning of that movie where Kidman's witchy Samantha character first arrives in Los Angeles. She drives around and spots her dream house. She then twitches her nose, and thanks to her witchy powers, a "For Sale" sign appears in the yard and a realtor magically walks out of nowhere and sells her the house.

I love silly comedies. I love laughing. But to this day, I haven't been able to shake the thought: WHAT HAPPENED TO THE FAMILY THAT LIVED IN THAT HOUSE? Did the heroine of the story just snuff innocent people out of existence with a twitch of her nose? Using your witch powers to clean your house or fly through the air is one thing, but she just bent the fabric of time and space, potentially committed multiple homicides, and forever altered history. And where did the realtor come from? Is it a demon from hell? Otherwise, you just zapped a realtor into some weird new existence, added a new listing to the national MLS database, and reprogrammed the realtor's brain to not question where she was or what she was doing. That's one heck of a nose twitch.

For all I know, "Genie" might NOT have a happy ending. Maybe Bernard never gets his wife and/or life back. I'll never know. I switched the TV off halfway while muttering, "I can't watch this nonsense." That's when I realized I might have more in common with my old man than I ever thought.

I still can't build a house, though. But I might be able to tell you when a movie's bad and you should skip it.