Murphy's Fiasco, Keaton's Folly, Toothless Horrors
FS
Issue date: 2/14/07 Section: Arts & Entertainment
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It's really time for Hollywood to declare an extended moratorium, if not a permanent ban, on the use of fat suits in comedies. As if Martin Lawrence's Big Momma movies weren't bad enough, now Eddie Murphy trumps them with Norbit (wide release), a picture so coarse and mean-spirited that it might just cost him the Oscar he's been nominated for.
Murphy, who also co-wrote the script, dons the rubber costume to play Rasputia, a shrewish, grotesquely obese woman married to a nebbishy fellow (also played by Murphy, in full Jerry Lewis mode), whom she regularly assaults verbally and crushes beneath her weight in bed.
Needless to say, Norbit doesn't love her-he's still pining away for his childhood sweetheart Kate, who returns to town, sweet and rail-thin, but with a crooked fiancé in tow.
What passes for plot involves the nasty Rasputia's efforts to keep Norbit and Kate apart and Norbit's effort to prove Kate's boyfriend a crook. But it's all just an excuse for a series of gross-out fat gags involving stuff like depilation, animal cruelty, adultery, long water-slides and bikinis-to name but a few.
And as if that weren't enough, Murphy also plays a third character-a stereotypical Chinese man who's more offensive than Charlie Chan.
You know a movie is bad when the best scene in it involves two pimps leading a jovial dance in a church. But that's the case here.
And it says an awful lot about Norbit.
It's appropriate that so much of Because I Said So (wide release) is set in a bakery, because even in a sea of terrible chick flicks, this appalling confection takes the cake.
Diane Keaton, giving a grating performance that seems to magnify her customary mannerisms a thousandfold, plays an incredibly intrusive mother who advertises on-line for a suitor for her unmarried daughter (Mandy Moore). She chooses one applicant-a well-to-do architect-but one that she dismisses, a free-spirited musician, decides to romance Moore without mom's permission. Guess which one turns out to be Mr. Right.
Murphy, who also co-wrote the script, dons the rubber costume to play Rasputia, a shrewish, grotesquely obese woman married to a nebbishy fellow (also played by Murphy, in full Jerry Lewis mode), whom she regularly assaults verbally and crushes beneath her weight in bed.
Needless to say, Norbit doesn't love her-he's still pining away for his childhood sweetheart Kate, who returns to town, sweet and rail-thin, but with a crooked fiancé in tow.
What passes for plot involves the nasty Rasputia's efforts to keep Norbit and Kate apart and Norbit's effort to prove Kate's boyfriend a crook. But it's all just an excuse for a series of gross-out fat gags involving stuff like depilation, animal cruelty, adultery, long water-slides and bikinis-to name but a few.
And as if that weren't enough, Murphy also plays a third character-a stereotypical Chinese man who's more offensive than Charlie Chan.
You know a movie is bad when the best scene in it involves two pimps leading a jovial dance in a church. But that's the case here.
And it says an awful lot about Norbit.
It's appropriate that so much of Because I Said So (wide release) is set in a bakery, because even in a sea of terrible chick flicks, this appalling confection takes the cake.
Diane Keaton, giving a grating performance that seems to magnify her customary mannerisms a thousandfold, plays an incredibly intrusive mother who advertises on-line for a suitor for her unmarried daughter (Mandy Moore). She chooses one applicant-a well-to-do architect-but one that she dismisses, a free-spirited musician, decides to romance Moore without mom's permission. Guess which one turns out to be Mr. Right.
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