Will Smith's take on the Genie from Aladdin is getting an overwhelmingly negative response
online.
After Disney dropped a teaser trailer for the upcoming live-action adaptation of the
animated classic during the Grammys, Smith's Genie was immediately mocked, especially on
Twitter.
From the horrified to the hilarious, here are some of the best online reactions.
Boo to the blue hue
Let's get the most obvious burn out of the way: Countless Twitter users compared Smith's
Genie to David Cross's Tobias wearing his Blue Man Group makeup on Arrested Development,
which, y'know, fair enough...
"I feel like a f---ing idiot."
Others compared Smith's Genie to the blue dudes in James Cameron's Avatar, while YouTuber
Caillou Pettis noted the Genie's freakish CGI girth, quipping,
"This looks like a blue version of Shrek."
The seemingly endless list of blue pop culture references on Twitter also included comparisons
to the Smurfs, naturally, as well as the fate of Paul Giamatti's character in Big Fat Liar.
"Oh my God!"
The Not-So-Fresh Prince of Bel-Air
A number of tweets about Smith's take on the Genie came at the expense of another '90s
icon: Smith's character on The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air.
While riffing on the actor's iconic rap from the sitcom's opening credits sequence, Full
Frontal with Samantha Bee writer Mike Drucker tweeted,
"In ancient Arabia, bottled and raised, at the cave of wonders spending most of my days,
chillin' out maxin' relaxin' all cool, grantin' wishes to street rats outside the school."
Another like-minded lyricist wrote,
"Now I'd like to take a minute just sit down champ I'll tell you how I became the genie
of this here gold lamp."
Nicely done, but we'd like to see more Six Degrees of Separation memes, ourselves.
"Everyone's in a constant state of luxurious despair and constant discovery and paralysis."
Just us?
The stuff of nightmares
While the jokes kept coming, the reveal of Will Smith's Genie appeared to be the stuff
of actual nightmares for plenty of other Twitter users.
YouTuber Jenny Nicholson tweeted,
"Will Smith genie is what appears in my room when I have sleep paralysis."
While writer and activist John Paul Brammer wrote,
"The bar I'm in had the most VISCERAL reaction of horror to Will Smith in the Aladdin trailer
I'm screaming."
Meanwhile, Kyle Buchanan of the New York Times devoted an entire Twitter thread to his horrified
response, even going so far as to jokingly compare the live-action CGI Genie to the unseen
monsters in Netflix's Bird Box.
(laughs) Okay, that got me.
"They premiered this image at night???
We are supposed to sleep after this???
I have never known peace.
Honestly the Will Smith genie feels like a spoiler for BIRD BOX because I finally understand
what image would make them so fascinated but also want to kill themselves."
Blue too soon
If some of this criticism against Will Smith's Genie sounds familiar, it's because Twitter
previously lost its collective mind over the character's first appearance in December 2018.
When Entertainment Weekly released the first official photos from Aladdin, the Genie just
looked like Smith dressed up in a genie costume, which led underwhelmed social media users
to gripe about the actor's hairdo and wonder why on Earth his genie wasn't blue, like in
the beloved original.
Smith quickly responded to these concerns on Instagram, writing,
"Yes, I'm gonna be BLUE!
This is how the Genie is in Human / Disguise Form.
My character will be CGI most of the movie."
Blissfully unaware of the second round of backlash he was about to endure, he wrote,
alongside the second teaser trailer,
"I told y'all I was gon' be Blue!!
Y'all need to trust me more often!"
Collider TV critic Allison Keene summed up the double dose of backlash that ensued like
this:
"Remember when the EW images came out for Aladdin and everyone was like oh why isn't
Will Smith blue as the genie?!?
And now we have THIS.
Be careful what you wish for."
Wishing it away?
Some Disney fans might want to trade in their three wishes to unsee the Will Smith genie,
but there are others who'd wish for Aladdin's live-action treatment to become a hit.
The aptly-named radio host Jasmine Sadry, for example, tweeted,
"I mean I personally think the new #Aladdin trailer was amazing.
That's just ME personally though."
However, her tweet gained thousands of likes, signaling that she's not alone in her opinion.
Additionally, in stark contrast to what went down for the most part on Twitter, the comments
section of Smith's Instagram post sharing the February 2019 teaser trailer was quickly
flooded with messages of support.
Elsewhere on Twitter, some fans simply appeared fed up with the online complaints, and others
chose to remain cautiously optimistic about the upcoming Disney flick.
Interestingly, a smaller group online felt Smith's Genie was actually the highlight of
the trailer.
As one Twitter user put it,
"HONESTLY I think Will Smith as the Genie is an awesome idea and the rest of the movie
is what looks bland/uninspired."
One level-headed tweeter, meanwhile, served up a dose of reality, writing,
"Hot take: Genie already looked weird in the original Aladdin.
Because he's a genie."
Hard to argue with that.
While some Disney fanatics are holding out hope, it looks as though this version of Aladdin
may be destined to add more to meme culture than the awards show circuit.
Ahead of its release on May 24, 2019, we're doing our best to stay positive.
Check out one of our newest videos right here!
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