For shame Eddie Murphy, for fucking shame. Listen, The Nutty Professor was decent, it wasn’t great, but it did manage to be mildly entertaining and showed that Eddie Murphy is adept at playing multiple roles with wildly different personalities and that was fine. He can do that and that’s just fine. But he has been a down slide as of late and it just doesn’t help him when he does movies like this. Oh and just for the record, he did Norbit around the same time he was nominated for an Oscar for his role in Dream Girls. Why would you pigeonhole yourself like that?
A meek and lovable milquetoast married to an overbearing, overweight tyrant finds his life turned upside down when he meets the woman of his dreams in this romantic comedy starring Eddie Murphy, Thandie Newton, Cuba Gooding Jr., and Eddie Griffin. His entire life, Norbit (Murphy) has been picked on and put down, and after being bullied into marrying the most obnoxious woman in town (also Murphy) it appears as if that’s the way things will remain until the day he dies. Upon meeting the one woman who seems to accept him for who he is, Norbit is instilled with a newfound sense of hope for the future. In order to find true happiness, however, Norbit will first have to gather the courage to stand up to his monstrous spouse once and for all. ~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi
Why? Why is there this love of watching Black actors playing fat women in fat suits. I mean you have the entire Medea empire which is a sad one trick pony that keeps making money cause people don’t know better. Then you Martin Lawrence who apparently only make Big Momma movies. Now you have Eddie Murphy once again donning a fat suit because fat people make for funny characters because they break chairs and beds and other things that normal people sit on. Plus everything they do is hilarious.
Shit I haven’t touched on the movie really, which should tell you a lot about the movie itself. Norbit is just terribly offensive, unfunny and just a terrible mess. Not a single character is worth even mentioning and I felt like I was being smothered to death with that fat suit. It’s just so unappealing and the movie is one giant constant setup for scenes of Rasputia breaking an untold amount of furniture. Her character is just so blatantly offensive that each scene is just grating to the point of wanting to turn it off. Norbit is supposed to be a character we sympathize with, but I am just hoping he gets crushed to death under the weight of the fat suit to end his and my suffering. Mr. Wong is just, I don’t know, nor do I want to try to explain.
All those characters above are played by Eddie Murphy, all of which are played to an extreme hilt of a stereotype that you can’t even enjoy the movie because of the sheer amount of offensive stereotype plays that are made at the expense of the character. I get that she is a sassy black female, but fuck tone it down just a bit. Nothing is good about the movie. We are supposed to care what happens to Norbit or whatever but I couldn’t even be bothered to remember the movies plot and I just watched it a day ago.
The laughs are cheap and fleeting. There is nothing redeemable about this movie. The story is so uninteresting that I would rather sit in the makeup chair for hours on end getting put into the fat suit than watching this movie.
