Cast: Eddie Murphy, Thandie Newton, Cuba Gooding Jr.

Director: Brian Robbins

Screenplay: Jay Scherick

Running time: 1 hr 42 mins

Genre: Comedy


CRITIQUE:


Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to 2007’s worst movie. That’s no good news for comedy veteran Eddie Murphy, where his recent effort falls flat into the doomed ground of unfunny supposed-to-be comedies. Although decency is not really mandatory in cinema, as we’ve seen a lot of film without any, NORBIT borders the line between shameless chuckles and discomforting arse pain, where you have to sit down and painfully put up with its crass and crude silliness, checking yourself whether you’re absently laughing on its horrible meaninglessness or cringing from its awful pretence.


There are fart jokes, fat jokes, race jokes, sex jokes, marital jokes, and the list could extend all the way to those people who appreciate such kind of things. NORBIT is, in fact, abundant of them. Despite of its titular character, whose soft-spoken behaviour leads him to devastation in marrying a black giant, it is actually the hippopotamus – er, sorry – the wild-mannered, big black woman by the name of Rasputia who gets the central attraction. Apparently, in the movie world, fat people are taken as a joke. So when Norbit (Eddie Murphy) marries Rasputia (a womanised version of Eddie Murphy plus fat suits), we imagine a barbeque stick and a pork loin having a relationship, plausibility in question. And when childhood love returns home, Kate (Thandie Newton), Rasputia becomes scarier than ever as Norbit tries to break free from her massive grip.


It’s even scarier to think that three great talents have been direfully exploited in this shithole. For one, Eddie Murphy (who seem to follow footsteps of Halle Berry to her CATWOMAN disaster after Oscar triumph in MONSTER’S BALL) is wasting his talent in this mess. His DREAMGIRLS’ Jimmy Early has been a testament to his glorious caper as an actor, but like any other actors, they do have to go through the bad times. Same as Cuba Gooding Jr, whose Oscar Best Supporting Actor statue seemed to have been ignored from his mantelpiece. Finally, Thandie Newton, sorry Thandie but you’re better for choices like this.



THE FINAL WORD:


This bum-numbing, jaw-paralysing annoyance serves as a bitter fact to the cruel world that appalling movies still do exist. Fat suit prosthetics are prolific, seemingly to cover thinly conceived characters. NORBIT should have a tagline that goes ‘Eddie Murphy in his career jeopardy’.


RATING: F