Published: June 01, 2007
Norbit DVD Review
by Kam Williams
Eddie Murphy as Multiple Characters in Comedy Released on DVD
Eddie Murphy portrays three of the leads in this relentlessly-coarse makeup movie. He's the sympathetic title character, Norbit, a bespectacled naïve, nerd. He's also Mr. Wong, the trash-talking, Asian-American owner of the Golden Wonton Chinese Restaurant and Orphanage. And finally, he's Rasputia, a sassy, oversexed, super-sized sister.
The story opens with a babe in swaddling clothes being abandoned by parents who toss him out of a car on their way home from the hospital. Norbit is rescued and raised by Mr. Wong who refers to the tyke in pidgin English with lines like "You very ugly baby... Ugly black one... You be here long time..." thereby setting the table for the crude romantic comedy's prevailing tone which makes characters with darker skin the butt of virtually every joke.
Norbit's early childhood is nearly idyllic because he and another orphan, thin and light-skinned Kate (Thandie Newton), are inseparable playmates, at least until she is adopted and whisked away forever by her new family. Her presence is replaced by fat and ugly Rasputia whose saving grace is that she protects him from playground bullies.
A love triangle later evolves, but this picture plays it purely for laughs, like the sight gag when Rasputia is stopped from entering a theme park because her rolls of fat are covering her bikini bottom, making it appear that she is naked from the waist down. The screenplay is laced with offensive dialogue, particularly on the part of a couple of gaudily-dressed pimps, named Lord Have Mercy (Katt Williams) and Pope Sweet Jesus (Eddie Griffin) with a license plate which reads "SELLNHOS" and a whorehouse called Beds, Bitches and Beyond.
If not for the fact that movie made $100 million in theaters, one would naturally never expect that such an offensive adventure ever got off the drawing board. I suppose that's why I'm a critic and not a scriptwriter.
Poor (.5 star)
Rated PG-13 for nudity, sexuality, profanity, and crude humor.
Running time: 102 minutes
Studio: Paramount Home Entertainment
DVD Extras: 14 deleted scenes, three featurettes, and more.
Search News
