Hey, everyone. ”Moriarty” here. I’ll be back with more to say about Eddie Murphy later this morning. For now, I’ll just say that I fully intend to see NORBIT, good or bad, because I am always curious about Eddie. Here’s someone who went to tonight’s Arclight midnight screening:
Dear Aint' It Cool News crew, My friends and I purchased midnight tickets to Norbit, expecting the film to be a gigantic joke. I'm pretty surprised and happy to say it was one of the funniest, tightest, most well directed comedies I've seen in a while. Yes, I know how crazy that sounds. My friends and I are huge fans of bad films - we saw The Santa Clause 3 on opening night in Burbank, we saw Big Momma's House 2 in Boston...so we showed up a half hour early and had a good laugh at how empty the Cineramadome was. By the time the film started, it hadn't filled up much more, which only heightened the schadenfreude. But from the moment the film starts, you're laughing. Eddie Murphy portrays Norbit as a fully fleshed out sketch comedy character. I had been expecting Norbit to be "Eddie Murphy With Glasses", but he really fills out the role, like a Ron Burgundy or a Frank Drebin. He's got a great nerdy vocal tic, sounding a lot like Jimmy the handicapped kid from South Park but without the stutter. He's also not a wildly flailing superdork, in fact Norbit plays pretty reserved - there's a funny scene where Norbit reiterates the fact that he has to get a food order exactly right, or "Rasputina...she will kill me." He's not Ben Stiller in Along Came Polly, he's Ben Stiller in Dodgeball - just not at all what you'd expect. But jump back a second to Rasputina - I was expecting there to be some kind of "Shallow Hal" moment in the film where we're forced to feel bad about all the fat jokes, kind of an atonement for all the physical comedy. Nope. Rasputina's the straight up villian of the film - within the first act, she cheats on Norbit with her "Power Tap" aerobics teacher. At one point she threatens to scar Norbit's budding love interest Kate by throwing acid in her face (Demonstrating on a potato she's drawn a face on). She's not played as like a sad, "Hah hah she's so fat and loud" character - at the end, she nearly kills Norbit with a shovel. And here's the thing - it's got the structure of a romantic comedy, but some pretty alternative stuff in it. Sure, there's two people in love, their existing romantic interests keep them from each other until the end, when they kiss. That's all there. However, i've never seen a romantic comedy where one of the women threatened to murder the other woman, and her own husband, unless she got her way. There've plenty of romantic comedies with a violent third act before - mobsters or bad guys, some kind of external threat. But here (and I don't think I've ever seen this before), the threat of violence is completley within love triangle - and it's hilarious. Unlike all black cast comedies like Barbershop or any Tyler Perry film, race wasn't an issue in Norbit. That's not to say that the characters were written in a phony or "safe" sense, but they weren't defined by their race - rather by their motivations. Here's an example. In Madea's Family Reunion, race is so at the forefront that in the third act an older black woman gives a speech telling young black people to, "Get it together", to stop dressing like tramps and running out on their pregnant girlfriends. You know, really preachy bullshit that assumes an entire race of people act one and only one way. There's no time for that in Norbit - his three evil step-brothers are too busy trying to turn an orphanage into a strip club called "Nippleopolous". Former pimp Eddie Griffin's too busy muscling in on a kissing booth, concerned that its success would affect his reputation. Mr. Wong, the asian orphanage owner, is too concerned with his lifelong dream of becoming a whaler. The preacher's too concerned with how hot lesbians are. Also, to speak to the film's unexpected alternativeness, here's an example: there's a school of aerobics in this film called "Power Tap", an odd hybrid of Billy Blanks and tap dancing. It's a funny gag, but it's also the kind of gag you'd expect in a Jack Black movie (with a stunt-cast cameo by Will Ferrel as the teacher). It's nonsensical, oddball alternative stuff that's really refreshing. And finally, here's something that I never thought I'd say - for the first time in my life, a talking dog made me laugh. The trailer and commercials present the Charlie Murphy talking dog as a recurring thing, but it only happens once, when Norbit has a concussion. When Norbit asks the dogs advice, he bluntly suggests that Norbit murder his wife. With a CGI talking dog, I'm expecting jokes about licking ones self, or peeing on a fire hydrant. Not this time - he's tired of how Rasputina's constantly trying to murder him (for no real reason), so he suggests that Norbit do the job for him. Cuba Gooding Jr.'s funny, too - and not just in an ironic, "look he's playing a retard" way. Twice he exits a scene by simply yelling, "I'm out!" and walking away. Tandie Newton's great, and pretty hot too. I just can't get over how this film worked. A lot of big, fun crazy stuff, a plot that works and you end up feeling great as you exit. When Norbit gets the girl, it's earned. If you use this review, call me Overtime. Thanks so much.
