Customer Reviews

Norbit [Blu-ray]

5 star:		(36)
4 star:		(30)
3 star:		(31)
2 star:		(7)
1 star:		(30)

 

 

*1/2

For 102 mind-numbing minutes, "Norbit" plays like one long fat-person joke told over and over again in the vain hope that even if it wasn`t funny the first time, it will somehow improve with the repetition.

Eddie Murphy continues the shtick he started with "The Nutty Professor" of playing numerous characters in various guises buried under tons of prosthetic makeup. In "Norbit," Murphy appears as three characters: Norbit, the nerdy orphan who's never learned to stand up for himself; Rasputia, the obese shrew who ropes Norbit into marrying her; and Mr. Wong, the owner of the orphanage, who raised Norbit after he was unceremoniously dropped off there by his parents one fateful night in the late 1960`s. Norbit is all grown up now and living in a squeaky-clean, candy-colored, studio backlot small town inexplicably inhabited by both white-bread types straight out of Middle America and stripe-suited, Cadillac-driving street pimps fresh from the `hood.

There's no point in denying Murphy's skill at mimicry and impersonation, since the evidence is there in spades for all to see in "The Nutty Professor." But then "The Nutty Professor" gave Murphy an actual, honest-to-God screenplay off of which he could build his routines. In the case of "Norbit," if the studio had spent even a tenth of the time and effort on coming up with a good script as it did on designing fat suits and CGI-enhanced prosthetics, this might have been a decent comedy. As it is, it's just loud, obnoxious and offensive and wastes the talents of Thandie Newton, Cuba Gooding Jr., Marlon Wayans and Eddie Griffin into the bargain. Of course, as co-writer of the screenplay, Murphy has really no one but himself to blame for his being trapped in this fiasco.

When the only source of humor is making fun of fat people, and when that one note is played over and over and over again to ever diminishing results, you know it's time to cash in your chips and move on. The problem for "Norbit" is that a bad joke remains a bad joke - no matter how many times you tell it.

People who compare this role to the role Eddie played in Dreamgirls are silly, these are 2 totally different movies. Norbit is crude humor at it's best, if you are easily offended or looking for a serious drama, don't purchase or rent this movie and the nutty professor, it is not! Eddie plays multiple roles excellently as we know, the film also stars Cuba Goodin Jr.,Thandie Newton and a hilarious cameo from Marlon Wayans, not much substance as far as a plot is concerned , not a love story -just a raunchy, crude performance by Eddie Murphy but hilarious nonetheless and funny is actually and understatement.

Rasputia is a mean, cruel and fat bitch. Mr. Wong is a rude, blunt, racist and cool asian; and Norbit is soft, naive, weak but brave in the end. This movie is good, and is really funny (The Latimores are wickedly comic!). Ha ha ha. No more to say. Good for Eddie Murphy.

I think the people that put one star for this one, are fat people with no sense of humor.

Viewers must be starved for comedy to endure Eddie Murphy's wretched tour-de-farce. Makeup wizard Rick Baker is the real star of "Norbit" - allowing Murphy to portray a variety of characters with diminishing results. After his standout performance in "Dreamgirls," it's appalling that Murphy (who co-wrote this fiasco) would squander his talents in such a grotesque fashion. Furthermore, he doesn't need elaborate makeup to showcase his versatility. Skip this comic nightmare and revisit Murphy's brilliant work on "Saturday Night Live."

I was anticipating this movie. I had seen "Dreamgirls" and was thrilled with Eddie Murphy's performance. I had been hoping for an Eddie Murphy revival for sometime and thought "Norbit" would be the second installment.
Well, this movie did not install correctly. The friend I went with was offended by many of the things this movie had to offer. The main thing to offend me was the ENTIRE thing because it was AWFUL.
What made it A-W-F-U-L? It tried to hard. It included every comedy ingredient and multiplied it by 35. It was too much.
I will add that it had some "sneak me" funny moments, but the film as a whole was not worth the paper my money was printed on.

I thought this was a really good funny movie! Eddie Murphy is back doing what he does best! He plays Norbit Rice, and his mistreating obese wife, Rasputia. In the middle of the movie, Norbit's childhood girlfriend, Kate comes back to town, hoping to buy the orphanage that she and Norbit grew up in. Kate's fiance and Rasputia's brothers try to stop Kate so they can open a strip club. Later, Norbit finally gets courage with the help of some friendly pimps, and Mr. Wong to tell Kate the truth and win her love. If you love comedies, and Eddie Murphy, you'll love NORBIT!!!!

Shortly after this movie was released I started hearing notions & comments on entertainment websites & shows that this movie would prevent Eddie Murphy from winning the Oscar for his performance in DREAMGIRLS. I heard that this movie was crass, buffoonish, stupid, ignorant, mean-spirited, yadda..yadda..yadda so I avoided seeing it till recently.

This is the first Eddie Murphy comedy that I've seen in a long time and I had no expectations about what I'd see but this was the most hilarious movie I've seen in quite a while. The makeup artist who transformed Eddie into Rasputia & Mr. Wong is to be commended as are the technical wizards who enabled us to see Norbit & Rasputia in the same scenes in a seamless manner. This is a basic story of a sad sack in Norbit who grows from an abandoned baby to the cuckolded husband of an overweight bully of a wife (both played by Murphy). Norbit's sad life is trucking along until he discovers his wife's infidelity and the return of his childhood sweetheart - these events make him realize that he wants & deserves true love & happiness.

The supporting cast of Thandie Newton, Eddie Griffin, Kat Williams, Cuba Gooding, Jr., Terry Crews and Marlon Wayans as the "power tap guru" definitely worked well off of Eddie's "characters".

Frankly, several members of my family have questioned my taste level after learning how much I enjoy this movie but I just tell them "different strokes for different folks" and keep it moving. This movie IS crude, rude & lewd but I found it funny as hell and crack up every time I think about certain scenes so to all who enjoyed it, HOW YOU DOIN'?!

But you must love raw, crude humor. If you do, this one kills! And Eddie Murphy is amazing!

*Norbit* is funny, along with some dry parts after the first half of the movie, which, of course, could have been edited.

Regardless, if you enjoyed *Coming to America* and the *Nutty Professor*, then you'll like this. Eddie Murphy is Norbit, Rasputia and Mr. Wong, which I didn't catch on until later on in the movie. Yep, he's that good.

Orphanage life is all that Norbit knows, raised by the Asian Mr. Wong. Once his best friend, Kate, has been adopted, life for Norbit has become hell. Soon, chunky Rasputia enters the pictures and declares herself as Norbit's girlfriend.

Life is supposed to get better as you get older, eh? Well, not for Norbit, he ends up stuck getting married to Rasputia, along with her 3 brothers. They all own a construction company. Unknown to Norbit, the brothers wants to buy out the orphanage for their own illegal purposes. However, Mr. Wong is having none of it.

Well, soon enters Kate, Norbit's childhood friend, along with her fiance, Deion. Kate wants to buy the orphanage and continue the business. However, her fiance has another purpose for this building and is soon in cahoots with Rasputia's 3 brothers.

Meanwhile, Norbit is torn between his loveless marriage to Rasputia and his lifelong love for Kate.

Rasputia cracks me up. She's this huge gal who doesn't give a flying fig about what anyone thinks of her. She's this "little princess" who gets what and when she wants.

Once again, this was a funny movie. However, there were some parts that were just dry that made you looked at your watch and wished it was over already. It's those parts that make the movie from being "great!" However, still funny.

This movie can be called racist, offensive or any other descriptive you wish to utilize in the name of low brow comedy. However, the basis or essence of comedy has always teetered on the edge of "good taste" and those of us who can laugh at ourselves without inhibition will most certainly enjoy this effort. Norbit is an endearing charicature that you immediately fall in love with and root for thoughout the film. Norbit is the ultimate underdog so there has to be adversity, albeit stereotypical to some viewers at times, to show us that no matter how great the odds are stacked, that being true to yourself is the only way to true happiness. Don't get bogged down in the current publicity (Razzies). Just think of all the movies you've enjoyed that got less than shinning reviews. Eddie Murphy really can do it all.