Norbit (Full Screen)
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Movie Reviews of Norbit (Full Screen)
Movie Review: Another Beached Whale
Summary: 2 Stars
In the opening scene of "Norbit," the first thing to happen is a swaddled baby is tossed from a moving car. If you happen to find that sort of thing funny, you will probably think the rest of the movie is a hoot and a holler.
Norbit is the unfortunate projectile infant, and he lands on the doorstep of a Chinese restaurant/orphanage run by a Mr. Wong (played by Murphy). Young Norbit grows up into a mealy-mouthed and dull-spirited boy who sports a tap-water spine and glasses that appear to have been inspired by the Hubble telescope. Murphy's sole characterization for Norbit is a mouth that is stretched and flattened in some kind of perpetual grimace. (You might find a similar grimace on your face halfway through this clumsy comedy.)
As Norbit ages, he becomes unlikely friends with a hefty and hideous woman named Rasputia (Murphy, again), emphasis on the word "unlikely." The reasons why such a selfish and vain woman would befriend and marry such a stupid and unintersting fellow aren't ever satisfactorily explained. (Not much in the movie is, really. Why, for example, are we supposed to sympathize with Norbit? Simply because he is put upon?)
With time, Norbit rediscovers an old lost love, Kate (the beautiful Thandie Newton), a close friend from his earliest days in the orphanage. Because they grew up together as toddlers, they are, obviously, meant for each other. Right? Right? *sigh* Anyway, Kate begins to fall for Norbit, in spite of his wholesale lack of any appeal, and thus we have our central conflict: love lost, love found, love unfulfilled.
Add to the mix a cheating and lying boyfriend (Cuba Gooding, Jr.), bad guys who want to turn an orphanage into a strip club, endless fat jokes, an interrupted wedding, and many delightful misunderstandings, and you've got every comedy cliche in the book, standing upright, mugging shamelessly, and waddling around.
Murphy shows off his chops (and let's admit it, the guy can act) and does so in a style that by now has become a sort of convention for him -- the multiple characters. If there's anything good about "Norbit," it is that the movie very quickly helps you forget that you're watching the same man play three different roles. The special effects are pretty phenomenal, actually, with Wong, Norbit, and Rasputia interacting seamlessly in more than a few scenes. This viewer had to remind himself that he was watching the ballet of computer generated manipulation.
But a superb technical accomplishment is no substitute for the laughs this film fails to provide. Norbit's pimp friend (Eddie Griffin) is good for a chuckle now and then, but the rest of the movie is just smug mockery, artful maliciousness, and one lame duck gag after another, all of it buried under pounds and pounds of artificial fat.
Movie Review: Not what we expected ~ not for young children
Summary: 2 Stars
We just saw this film with our two young children. BIG MISTAKE. I was off base in thinking that since they loved Eddie Murphy playing five hilarious characters in The Nutty Professor, they'd be just as impressed with Norbit. I was totally wrong. From the opening scene when infant Norbit is literally THROWN from a moving vehicle and rolls like a football to the doorstep of his future orphanage, right down to the way Rasputia and her bully brothers violently treat everyone, there is absolutely nothing in this film for children to genuinely enjoy. There are blatant racist comments along with everything else not meant for young viewers. Laughing at the hilarity of trying to squeeze into a small vehicle, or slide down the wet slope at the water park is good clean fun, but the line was crossed for us when we watched the expression on our kid's faces as Rasputia deliberately ran down a neighbor's dog with her speeding vehicle, rendering him crippled. It was just plain cruel, and we were amazed that Murphy found a place for these kinds of scenes in this movie. The orphanage is supposedly in danger of becoming a strip club, and there are frequent references to pimping, which I thought could have been easily avoided and replaced with a business such as a fast food chain or a video store. By comparison, my kids totally enjoy watching Big Momma's House and though Martin Lawrence can be raunchy in some of his other films, Big Momma I and II are not offensive or overly violent or cruel. Eddie Murphy disappointed us this time, very sorry to say. Other reviewers might attack this review simply because they didn't make the mistake we did by bringing small, impressionable children to see what we had hoped (based on the t.v. commercials) to be a funny family film.Movie Review: It's a gigantic piece of ----!
Summary: 1 Stars
Wow I didn't like this movie at all. Ok so there were some funny parts in it, but just like two parts out of all the whole movie!
"WARNING: POSSIBLE SPOLIERS"
It all starts out when Norbit is literally thrown out of the car when he was a baby. Mr. Wong an Asian racist, who owns an orphange, rescues Norbit from the coyotoes. In the orphanage, Norbit meets the love of his life, Kate. But his heart is soon broken when she's adopted. Then an even bigger problem comes along. Raspusha! Raspusha saves Norbit from some bullies, and I don't know if her brothers and her adopted Norbit or not, but she forces him to be her boyfriend. Then when Norbit grows up, Raspusha forces him to marry her. She's not only on the really chuncky side, but she cheats on Norbit, and she abuses him.
Then Norbit finds Kate again, who has come back to town to buy the orphanage from Mr. Wong. But then it turns out that Kate has a fiance! So the whole town is somehow run by Raspusha and her brothers, and everyone hates and fears them. When Raspusha's brothers find out about Kate trying to buy the orphanage, they plot possibley the most stupidest thing that I can think of. They plan to turn the orphanage into a strip bar! They even get Kate's fiance to join in, saying that if he married Kate and she owned the orphanage, then the quicker he could help them turn it into a strip bar.
Well to make a long story short, Raspusha isn't very happy about Norbit's love interest. And blah blah blah.
Well anyways, when I started watching this film, my dad could not only not reconize Eddy Murphy, but he refused to believe that Eddy was playing Raspusha and Mr. Wong! Hah imagine that! And he got so bored with it that he walked out of the room! I sadly sat there watching it, and I regret every minuet of it. In fact I wasn't so much focused on the fact that Raspusha is fat, it was more on the fact that she was really, and I mean really, really mean! In fact this stupid movie made me have a nightmare about Raspusha chasing me in my Grandma's house! And on Norbit the character itself, he's possibly the biggest whimp in the world! I almost felt sorry for him. Heck if I was married to someone like that, I would have kicked him to the cruve a long time ago! I felt sorry for his love interest because she needs to eat a little bit more!
But anyways, if you want to suffer through it, be my guest. Just don't buy it, rent it, that is if you dare!
Movie Review: Makes Jerry Springer look like William Shakespeare
Summary: 1 Stars
I saw about as much as I can stomach of this brain-cell killing piece of slop for the hogs at a local theater. After a little over an hour, I just had to jet from all this onscreen ignorance. Here's why.
In fairness, there are a few good things about this movie. The early business about Norbit and the little girl who grows up to be his true love is rather sweet. The "kiddie Wedding" seen is one of the few things that I saw that brought a smile to my face.
But this mess with "Rasputia" (this is enough to start Cold War II with the Russians once they get wind of this) and Eddie as the outrageously stereotyped Chinese orpphanage owner ("Norbit, you marry gorilla" is his comment about Rasputia) takes the movie on long downhill slide through the cinematic commode. It's bad enough Norbit is mistreated so badly that
you go beyond feeling sorry for him (granted, this is a "leave your brains at the door" flick), but Eddie as the hefty female "Rasputia" takes drag comedy to NEW lows.
"She" takes great pleasure in "her" flatuence and using "her" breasts to drive the steering wheel (trust me, you don't want to imaginge this). "She" also makes "love" to Norbit (bring on the Pepto Bismol again) and worst of all, Norbit catches "her" in bed with one of the Wayans brothers (their presence alone indicates the low level of "comedy" here) and "SHE" has the gall to get angry at Norbit, leading into a wild chase scene.
At this point, I had to hang on to my brain cells and digestive system, so I bid my friends at the theater adios and went home to read a book.
Comparing this with his stellar performance as the faux "Godfather" James Thunder early in "Dreamgirls," Eddie Murphy has gone from sugar to
s(omething else). Folks, do not waste your precious time, money, or brain cells on this cinematic equivalent to Khia and Gilligan's Island. When the DVD comes out, use only for frisbees and target practice (preferrably the latter). This TRASH makes SOUL PLANE look like GONE WITH THE WIND!
Movie Review: Did anyone actually think this would be a good movie?
Summary: 1 Stars
Honestly. You could tell just from the previews it was going to be just god awful. Ooh, what a brilliant plot: a dorky nerd has a dominating fat girlfriend, and the movie will be about his attempt to liberate himself from her clutches. You can predict every fat black woman stereotype a minute before it actually occurs on screen. And as for those who are wowwed by the whole multiple-character thing Murphy does, it's really not that novel of an idea. He's done it many times before, and really it's not that impressive. The man's an actor, he should be able to play different characters! It's kind of the definition of his job.
More reminiscent of "Pluto Nash" than any of Eddie Murphy's good movies, Norbit is a dismal failure that I am embarrassed to have seen. There is no reason to see movie. Poke your eyes out with a sharp stick rather than view this dull, cliche, tired train wreck.