Film Reviews

Norbit

• Rating:
• Director: Brian Robbins
• Starring: Cuba Gooding Jr.
• Details: US / 102mins (15).

Remember when Eddie Murphy used to be funny? That memory may be lost in the sands of time now, but Murphy used to make me guffaw, actually guffaw, at his antics and motor mouth. Apart from a brief resurgence with Bowfinger and Shrek, however, his recent comedic output has been thin on the ground. Comedy has become very lazy lately and the producers reckon because Murphy is in a fat suit, they don't need to worry about the jokes. Not only did they not worry about the jokes, they didn't even consider them. Growing up in an orphanage, mild mannered Norbit falls in love with Kate; but when she is adopted and moves away, Norbit is taken under the wing of fellow orphan Rasputia. Norbit, having no say in the matter, becomes her boyfriend, fiancee and finally husband. He leads a miserable life working for her three hoodlum brothers, but when Kate reappears it offers a ray of hope. There are two problems however: she's married (to Gooding Jr.) and Rasputia won't give him up that easy. Murphy plays three characters in total: the shy, browbeaten Norbit, his monstrous wife Rasputia and the Chinese orphanage proprietor Mr Wong. Written by Murphy with his brother Charlie (although there has to be some kind of Wayan input at some stage), Norbit is a second-hand movie from start to finish: Norbit himself is a riff on Murphy's role in Bowfinger, the big fat hoochie has already been done badly by Martin Lawrence (twice) and Mr. Wong harks back to Mickey Rooney in Breakfast At Tiffany's. Eddie, it wasn't funny then and it isn't funny now.

Review by Gavin Burke