Psycho's Movie Reviews #352: NORBIT (2007)

Norbit is a 2007 American comedy film, directed by Brian Robbins, and co-written by, co-produced by, and starring Eddie Murphy. The film co-stars Thandie Newton, Terry Crews, Cuba Gooding Jr., Eddie Griffin, Katt Williams, Marlon Wayans, and Charlie Murphy. It was released by DreamWorks and Paramount Pictures on February 9, 2007.

The film was a box office success, it grossed $159 million worldwide, against a production budget of $60 million. It was negatively received by critics. The film was nominated for eight Golden Raspberry Awards, and also nominated for the Academy Award for Best Makeup.

Plot

Childhood friends Norbit Albert Rice and Kate Thomas, living at an orphanage doubling as a Chinese restaurant called The Golden Wonton owned by Mr. Wong, are separated when Kate is adopted. They also play married each other with ring pops.

Five years later, Norbit is rescued from playground bullies by a tough, overweight girl Rasputia Latimore, who becomes his protector from the other bullies and best friend, but eventually grows into an arrogant and tyrannical woman. After a while, they get married and Rasputia begins insulting and controlling him. Norbit is also belittled by Rasputia's older brothers Big Black Jack, Blue, and Earl, working as a bookkeeper at their construction company. The Latimore brothers run a "security business", instilling fear in the entire community except Mr. Wong, who refuses to sell them his business.

Norbit catches Rasputia cheating on him with her dance instructor Buster Perkin, throws away his wedding ring and vents his anger at a puppet show for the orphans. He is stunned to see Kate for the first time since childhood, and his affection for her reignites as he learns she is buying Mr. Wong's orphanage, but is disappointed to learn she is engaged to a man named Deion Hughes.

With help from ex-pimp friends Pope Sweet Jesus and Lord Have Mercy and other townspeople, Norbit meets Kate without Rasputia's knowledge. Deion attempts to leave town without Kate, having no intention to help her run the orphanage, but the Latimore brothers stop and persuade him to instead help them to turn the orphanage into a strip club. The brothers dupe Norbit into getting Kate to sign papers to renew the restaurant's liquor license in the Latimores' name. Norbit's meeting with Kate leads to helping rehearse her wedding, where a kiss between them makes her reconsider marrying Deion. Norbit returns home to learn Rasputia witnessed their kiss and threatens violence towards Kate if he ever sees her again.

When Kate later learns about the deal from Deion, she goes to confront Norbit and sees him being held prisoner by Rasputia (who masterminded the orphanage plot) in their basement. Norbit reluctantly, deliberately drives her away to protect her from Rasputia. Satisfied, Rasputia lies that Norbit has tricked Kate since she came back to town. Heartbroken, Kate runs away, and Norbit decides to permanently leave town. Then he finds a letter from the private investigator he hired, discovering Deion is rich from various divorce settlements.

The Latimores reveal their plan to Norbit, and lock him in the basement again. Norbit escapes, reaching the wedding just in time to inform Kate of Deion's schemes. Though his proof of Deion's divorce settlements was destroyed after falling into a pond, Norbit reveals Deion's ex-wives and children, and Deion flees as they give chase.

The Latimores attack Norbit for ruining their plans, but the townspeople take up arms to protect him. Rasputia fights her way through the crowd and prepares to kill him, but Mr. Wong harpoons her in the rear. The Latimores are chased out of town, and Norbit and Kate reconcile. They buy the orphanage and marry under the same tree where they played as children. The Latimores move to Mexico and open up their strip club "El Nipplopolis", where Rasputia becomes their most popular and lucrative stripper.

{I kid you not, when we (my parents and I) were watching this, we legit laughed so hard at this scene. All of us... Ah good times}

Production

After the success of Shrek, DreamWorks co-founder and CEO Jeffrey Katzenberg signed up Eddie Murphy to star in a live-action follow-up, and they were looking for the right film. Norbit seemed like a good fit, following on from playing multiple characters in a family comedy as Murphy had done before with Dr. Dolittle and The Nutty Professor. DreamWorks production president Adam Goodman brought the script to Brian Robbins and he was excited about the prospect of working with Eddie Murphy. Norbit was the first of three films where director Brian Robbins and Eddie Murphy worked together. They later collaborated for Meet Dave and A Thousand Words.

The various prosthetic makeups, bodysuits, and wigs were created by Rick Baker and his company Cinovation. Baker praised Murphy saying "He really makes the stuff come to life, and he never complains. When we did 'The Nutty Professor', he spent 80-odd days in the makeup chair. As much as I love makeup, even I would have been complaining by the end, but Eddie didn't."

Rick Baker wanted to work from a real life model and auditioned over a hundred extra large ladies, all with the necessary proportions. The model also needed to be able to dance. After several rounds of auditions, one lady was chosen as the life model for Rasputia and a foam latex suit was created based on her measurements. The surfaces was painted with silicone to make it look like skin. Silicone was also used to make matching gloves. The shape of Murphy's face was changed using foam latex and pieces of silicone, which were then painted over in various tones of red, brown and yellow to create realistic looking skin tone. A body double was used for some scenes, particularly the water park. Murphy with his face in makeup as Rasputia performed against green screen and his was head was digitally composited onto the body double.

Release/Reception/Box Office

On Rotten Tomatoes the film has an approval rating of 9% based on 124 reviews, with an average rating of 3.58/10, with the site's consensus reading, "Coming off his Oscar-nominated performance in Dreamgirls, the talented-but-inconsistent Eddie Murphy plays three roles in Norbit, a cruel, crass, stereotype-filled comedy that's more depressing than funny." Metacritic gave the movie a score of 27 out of 100, based on reviews from 26 critics, indicating "generally unfavourable reviews". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film a B grade, with under eighteens (28% of those surveyed) giving it a B+ grade.

Mick LaSalle of the San Francisco Chronicle gave the movie a positive review, suggesting that Norbit might help Murphy's chances of winning an Oscar for his role in Dreamgirls, saying that his work playing three distinct characters in Norbit is more impressive than anything he did in Dreamgirls. Others suggested it might hurt his chances. Ultimately, Alan Arkin won the award for Best Supporting Actor.

Luke Sader of The Hollywood Reporter called it "Racially insensitive, politically incorrect and beyond crude." Scott Tobias of The A.V. Club gave the film a grade of "F" and wrote: "It probably isn't possible for a single movie to reverse all social progress made since the civil-rights era, but Norbit, the latest broadside from Eddie Murphy, does its best to turn back the clock" and "hideously offensive black stereotypes are merely the tip of the iceberg." Josh Tyler of Cinemablend.com gave the movie a mostly negative review, in which he described parts of the film as "pretty despicable" and stated that "the plot relies on the idea that being fat also means you're a horrible bitch." However, he pointed out that "some of it's also kind of sweet. Eddie's really quite good as Norbit, the character is sympathetic and funny. He has a strange sort of perfect chemistry with Thandie Newton, and that's just not something I would have expected."

Liz Braun of Jam! Movies described Norbit as "mostly blubber jokes about how fat Rasputia really is" but said that "the movie is not without genuine laughs. Most of those laughs are generated by the other actors." In regard to the "terrifying" character Rasputia, she went so far as to say that the film "tends to confirm one's worst suspicions about Murphy and what appears to be his general fear and loathing of women. The Rasputia gag gets a little freaky if you think about it too much. And you wouldn't want to dwell on how much Thandie Newton looks like a slender boy in her role as Norbit's true love, either. So don't."

Black activists took issue with Eddie Murphy's portrayal of the character Rasputia, calling Norbit "just the latest film built around a black man dressing up as an unsophisticated, overweight black woman." Film critic MaryAnn Johanson said it was a minstrel show and called it a "hideous stew of bigoted "humour"".

The New Yorker film critic Richard Brody praised Murphy's performances saying "playing multiple roles, Murphy unleashes, with a sense of painful revelation, a tangle of rage, cringing fear, furious power, and a sense of perpetual and unresolved outsiderness." He rated it 17th of 30 top acting performances of the 21st century.

Musician Brian Wilson of The Beach Boys called Norbit his favourite movie in a 2007 interview with the Asbury Park Press.

Industry projections expected Norbit to earn about $20 million in its opening weekend, and Paramount were projecting earnings of $25 million. The film opened to $34.2 million in the United States, and was Eddie Murphy's 14th #1 box office opener. The film earned $95,673,607 at the North American domestic box office, and $63,639,954 in other markets, for a total of $159,313,561 worldwide. The film was released in the United Kingdom on March 9, 2007, and topped the country's box office for the next two weekends, before being overtaken by 300.

Budget $60 million

Box office $159.3 million

{This is me when I come home after a hard, long, tiring day at school/college/in general}

My Review

How YOU doin? By the time this film is over you'll be saying that to everyone and chuckling because Eddie Murphy has created his best character in a very, very, very long time and it's well deserving. Murphy is hilarious, he always has been but with the exception of the Shrek films Murphy has fallen on a bit of a rut as of late and I do classify the 'stupid and overblown' Klumps movie which I thought was ridiculous. Norbit is more of the Eddie Murphy style that he has come to be known for as of late. He plays multiple characters that are complete opposites and with very distinct possibilities. The fortunate part of Norbit is that the comedy actually works, and works well and Murphy and his brother co-wrote a script that is funny, cute, well performed and just very watchable. No one will tell you that Norbit is a classic of comedy and it should walk away with any awards but the important thing is it's not stupid, it's not dumb comedy and although some IMDb critics seem to take the subject matter very seriously, it isn't meant to be. Also director Brian Robbins has a knack of actually taking possibly brainless ideas and making a nice story out of it ex: The Perfect Score, Varsity Blues, and even Hardball.

Eddie Murphy is really the focus of Norbit because he plays the two main characters and does an incredible job. As Norbit he is shy, self conscious, often feels alone and a little geeky but a heart of gold and longs to be himself. Consider him Napoleon Dynamite with a brain. As Rasputia, the very large, outspoken, verbally and physically abusive wife of Norbit he is barely recognizable but still has that Murphy flare. He also plays the Chinese Restaurant owner/Orphanage caretaker Mr. Wong which I didn't even realize until nearly the end of the film. In all three roles Murphy shows why he loves comedy and how easily he can pull it off. He completely embodies these characters and makes them distinctive, lovable or villainous all in the same breath. Thandie Newton (who I have never particularly liked) is actually quite good as the sudden love interest of Norbit who resurfaces years later. She is sweet and likable and somehow a worthy adversary to Rasputia. Cuba Gooding Jr.(where the heck has this guy been) plays sleazy salesman and fiancé to Newton's character Deion Hughes. Gooding Jr. is such a versatile actor and it shows in this small performance where you just find him completely distasteful and root for Norbit around every corner. Add in the comedy talent of supporting actors including Eddie Griffin, Terry Crews, Clifton Powell, and Mighty Rasta and you've got yourself a silly comedy that actually works.

ANYONE who calls this film offensive is first and foremost WAY over sensitive. I am myself a tad bit overweight and I didn't find a single thing about Murphy's performance 'offensive.' I don't hear anyone talking about Thandie Newton's performance being offensive to skinny people?? I don't hear anyone saying Cuba Gooding Jr.'s performance was offensive to sales people?? It's ridiculous. The performances were meant to be over the top, ridiculous stereo types and that's what makes it funny. If a stand up comedian performed these characters on stage you'd be in hysterics but because it's in a movie it's offensive. If it offends you don't watch it and quite being so sensitive because there is far worse in the world then something like this. I can promise you this was not done out of distaste but simply to make a person laugh and it succeeds at that. Rasputia is hilarious and in her own way very likable too despite her constant torture on Norbit. It's not the best movie ever made, it's not even the best comedy to date but it's fun and you'll enjoy it if you get let yourself enjoy it. Get something serious to watch after it or before and you'll find the stress free, unintellectual laughter of Norbit soothing. 7/10