Stage one of Eddie Murphy’s recent comeback: Score a Best Supporting Actor nod in a semi-serious stretch as a vibrant, drug addicted singer in “Dreamgirls.” Stage two of Eddie Murphy’s recent comeback: Star in a big-budget, lamebrained comedy that shamelessly mines familiar territory for easy laughs. Fool proof plan, right?
Maybe so, as the strong opening weekend gross of “Norbit” implies. I’ve been a long-time fan of Murphy’s despite the fact that the majority of his films fall under the latter category of the “Hit and Miss” section. Going by resume alone, it seems hard to believe that an actor who has headlined so many crappy movies was at one point the hottest movie star alive. Actually studying the films says otherwise, though, as his charm and ease in front of the camera have enabled him to remain likeable, even while “Vampire in Brooklyn” sucks the valuable time away from anyone unfortunate enough to watch it.
His natural appeal gets put to good use in “Norbit,” which I expected to be horrendous but instead found myself laughing at every few jokes or so. It’s the sort of movie that nearly makes one feel embarrassed for enjoying the high level of talent that makes it okay to giggle along.
Murphy stars as the title character, a sweet-natured, passive nerd raised by orphanage owner and racial stereotype Mr. Wong (Murphy made up to look like a 70-year-old Chinese man). Norbit is strong-armed into marriage with Rasputia (Murphy in a very detailed fat-suit), a flamboyant but vile 300-pound woman who dictates her weak husband’s every move and has disgusting affairs with the local exercise instructor. The snarling yoke of his terrible wife begins to crumble when Kate (Thandie Newton), a long-lost childhood love, comes back to town to buy Mr. Wong’s orphanage. She takes an immediate liking to Norbit, presumably because he’s the only man she’s met since adulthood that didn’t hit on her right away. Since every screenplay needs some silly problem to drive the narrative, Norbit has to ensure that the orphanage doesn’t get transformed into a strip joint by Rasputia’s thuggish brothers and Kate’s seedy fiancée (Cuba Gooding Jr., making pretty abysmal use of that decade-old Oscar).
The plot is structured in such a way that it’s easy to imagine that the director rolled the camera and let Murphy improvise a large part of the jokes. Murphy understands how to milk crass humor for laughs, instead of simply saturating the audience with gross-out gags like a Rob Schneider atrocity. The material occasionally gets a little rough (leave the young kids at home), but there’s a softness to much of it. Most surprisingly, the film lacks much of the cruelty that usually coarses through the veins of comedies that aim for laughs at the expense of a morbidly obese character. Rasputia’s flashy assertiveness and comically violent outbursts essentially render her innate offensiveness moot, reminding us that we’re looking at a caricature, not a stereotype. While the same can’t be said of Mr. Wong, at least Murphy voices some of the film’s more clever lines through his rispy royce, er, lispy voice.
Though I reluctantly enjoyed it, I wished for more. Not so much for this film to be better, but for Murphy to make one that could recall his great work such as “Trading Places” and “Beverly Hills Cop” instead of mediocre examples like “The Nutty Professor” or “Showtime.”Thinking back, I realized one reason I sympathized with Norbit; Murphy played a nearly identical character in “Bowfinger,” a wonderful Hollywood satire from 1999. Put into that perspective, I can see “Norbit” more clearly as one career move forward, two artistic leaps backward.
2.5 out of 5
0 comments:
Post a Comment