Think Big Momma's House blended with a particularly loathsome Jerry Lewis movie, and you've got the picture. Grimacing yet?
Norbit (2007)
Tomatometer
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Reviews Counted:116
Fresh:10
Rotten:106
Average Rating:3.3/10
Consensus: Coming off his Oscar-nominated performance in Dreamgirls, the talented-but-inconsistent Eddie Murphy plays three roles in Norbit, a cruel, crass, stereotype-filled comedy that's more depressing than funny.
Rated: PG-13 [See Full Rating] for crude and sexual humor, some nudity and language
Runtime: 1 hr 42 mins
Genre: Comedies
Theatrical Release:Feb 9, 2007 Wide
Box Office: $95,323,496
Synopsis: Norbit (Eddie Murphy, channeling Buckwheat and Woody Allen) is a shy, nebbishy fellow, raised by Mr. Wong (Eddie Murphy again) in a combination orphanage/Chinese restaurant in Boiling Springs,... Norbit (Eddie Murphy, channeling Buckwheat and Woody Allen) is a shy, nebbishy fellow, raised by Mr. Wong (Eddie Murphy again) in a combination orphanage/Chinese restaurant in Boiling Springs, Tennessee. As a child, Norbit comes to love Kate, a fellow orphan, but the soulmates are separated when Kate is adopted. Enter Rasputia, an aggressive, plus-sized 10-year-old who protects him from bullies and demands his romantic loyalty, much like her thuggish older brothers demand "protection" money from all the merchants in Boiling Springs. Rasputia and Norbit eventually marry--and the peevish adult Rasputia is played to great comic effect by Eddie Murphy in a fat suit. Although Rasputia is controlling, unfaithful, hideous-looking, and always madder than a hornet, she and Norbit make a life together, albeit one based on inertia, fear, and complacency. The bubble bursts when the now-grown Kate (Thandie Newton) returns to Boiling Springs to buy Mr. Wong's orphanage. Norbit's love is rekindled, and he must find a way to end his loveless marriage, save Kate from marrying a crooked philanderer (Cuba Gooding Jr., in a rare villainous turn), and prevent Rasputia's brothers from carrying through with a big con job that would destroy the orphanage and Kate's life. Eddie Murphy, not surprisingly, carries the show, with broad, juvenile humor, fat jokes, and pratfalls, and while he never aims very high, he manages to inject some poignancy into Norbit's and Wong's characters, even as he plays Rasputia strictly for laughs. It's not Shakespeare--it's not even BIG MOMMA'S HOUSE--but the laughs are as big as Rasputia's muumuu. [More]
Starring: Eddie Murphy, Thandie Newton, Cuba Gooding, Charlie Murphy
Starring: Eddie Murphy, Thandie Newton, Cuba Gooding, Charlie Murphy, Eddie Griffin, Terry Crews, Clifton Powell
Director: Brian Robbins
Director: Brian Robbins
Screenwriter: Jay Scherick, David Ronn
Producer: John Davis, Michael Tollin
Composer: David Newman
Studio: DreamWorks Distribution LLC
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Release:
Jun 16, 2009
Reviews for Norbit
Norbit is a tour de force in which Murphy plays three distinct characters, two of them to the hilt. In fact, the only thing that makes Norbit good rather than great is that the title character is a bit bland.
Norbit is not a thriller, action film or suspense story. Still, it achieves the assassination of comedy.
Perhaps a release at this time is meant to capitalize on Murphy's artistic comeback. Instead, Norbit serves as a feature-length reminder of why he needed a comeback.
Here's a new Oscar category: The Worst Movie Ever Released by Someone Currently Under Consideration for an Academy Award. The winner? Norbit.
Norbit is a return to form for Murphy; while it's not on a par with his best work, it's very funny and just risky enough to eradicate the memory of Daddy Day Care.
The question is not whether Murphy can do anything. He can. The question is why he would want to make a movie as squirmingly unfunny as Norbit.
If you're Eddie Murphy, and you want to win your Dreamgirls Oscar, you'd better hope voters cast their ballots before they see Norbit.
Eddie Murphy plays three roles in his latest Nutty Professor clone, titled Norbit. And Eddie Griffin still steals his movie from him.
In Norbit, Murphy is back playing multiple roles. But this time the magic isn't there.
Norbit is another crude, sloppy paycheck job for an actor who doesn't need the money -- and who proved in Dreamgirls that he is capable of far better.
A quick paycheck may sound like a good idea when you're a creatively tapped comedian making trash like Daddy Day Care. But when you're a suddenly serious comeback kid aiming for an Oscar?
Although there's no denying the threadbare nature of the script, watching Murphy riff can be a formidable entertainment on its own.
The Nutty Professor was a comic tour de force; Norbit smells faintly of desperation.
I could deal better with mean-spiritedness if the film were better written and directed. But the picture's humor is hit and miss, with long unfunny passages and characters who really don't change much.
You wouldn't call this a recommendation, exactly, but the new Eddie Murphy movie is not nearly as horrible as it looks.
Murphy looks like he's in pain, and he probably is -- latex cellulite can't be fun to wear -- but his anguish is as much existential as physical, trapped inside a lumbering vehicle that offers a morbidly obese harpy as the main comic attraction.
Norbit is pretty much a bad-taste sinkhole, with Murphy competing against himself to see which of his three characters he can make more grating.
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