HD DVD Review: Norbit

DVD Reviews

By Frankie Dees Jul 17, 2007, 14:07 GMT

Dreamworks releases the mind-bogglingly confused, borderline awful ‘Norbit’ on HD-DVD - where we all can enjoy the film (that most likely cost Eddie Murphy his Oscar) in the splendor of high definition.

Did someone ever think to tell Eddie Murphy that three wrongs do not make a right? Alas, it seems not, as we get three creations from Eddie Murphy that range from just merely unfunny all the way to a downright-obnoxious-and-I-have-a-strong urge-to-run-from-the-room-and-never-look-back feeling.

Taking a page from past novels of his that worked, the fat suit shenanigans of ‘The Nutty Professor’, the adoption of a nerdy demeanor from ‘Bowfinger’ or the disappearance under make-up that was displayed in ‘Coming to America’, he manages to forget the few things that made those characters work: a genuinely funny script and a not a little heart. Murphy’s refusal to work with talented filmmakers is really starting to become obvious as ‘Norbit’ brings him in “collaboration” with Brain Robbins, director of such comic greats such as ‘Good Burger’ and ‘The Shaggy Dog’. And apparently, their experience on this film was so positive that the love fest continues with their next film, ‘Starship Dave’. The next DiCaprio/Scorsese anyone? For the film, Eddie teamed with his bro Charlie Murphy of the Dave Chappelle show fame to write the script. Eddie and Charlie were apparently inspired by a You Tube video where a husband gets his butt handed to him by his overbearing wife - a spin on spousal abuse…laughing yet?So with this morsel of an idea, we arrive at ‘Norbit’, a cuckolded, meek little character who finds himself completely dominated by a gargantuan monster of a woman, Rasputia. Remember those old Looney Tune cartoons where Daffy Duck gets his bill knocked off by his loud, obnoxious wife? Think that but not funny. Anywho, I’m getting ahead of myself. The film starts off with poor Norbit being tossed out of a moving car as an infant in front of an orphanage/Chinese restaurant where he is taken in by the racist with a heart of gold Mr. Wong – the first of many attempts to make stereotypes and racism so blatant, that it circles back around from being offensive to funny…y’ know Dave Chappelle style…but again…doesn’t’ work.The first scenes at the orphanage are the closest to actually being funny as the dialogue for Mr. Wong seems slightly more polished (as he picks up the squirming baby Norbit in front of the orphanage … "hmm, a black one…you can’t give these away!”) with scenes playing out crude but staying just this side of mean-spirited.As a child in the orphanage, the buddy system gives him a new best friend, Kate, where the culmination of their relationship results in a makeshift wedding complete with those rock candy rings. Soon after, Kate gets adopted, and Norbit seemingly loses her forever. Cut to Norbit being bullied about on the playground. A shadow falls across his abusers which belong to the plus-size Rasputia who makes quick work of the bullies and then promptly makes Norbit her boyfriend without him getting much of a say. This relationship continues along these lines with a marriage that the meek Norbit never quite talks himself out of. He’s also scared not only of Rasputia but of her huge racketeering brothers, the Latimores.

His pathetic life proceeds as such until his long-lost honey Kate enters back into his life, now played by Thandie Newton. Kate, returning from a successful venture in Atlanta, wishes to buy their beloved orphanage from Mr. Wong who plans on retiring. Rasputia, sniffing out the rapport between the two quickly becomes jealous (despite her own philandering with a fitness guru) and aims to rid Norbit of lil’ miss skinny thing. Tired plot mechanics get in the way when the Latimore brothers, who have had their eye on the orphanage for a while, team up with Kate’s conniving fiancée (Cuba Gooding Jr.) to try and steal the orphanage away from ‘em in an effort to turn it into a “titty bar” called Nipplopolis. Needless to say, turning an orphanage into a titty bar can’t happen…or can it?Rasputia has got to be one of the most vile, crude and obnoxious characters ever captured on film. Bigger than Big Momma and Grandma Klump put together, Rasputia is an absurdly abrasive attempt at comedy. Mostly a string of fat jokes…she gets in the tub and water goes everywhere!, she’s so fat she shoots down a water park ride and through a wall and falls on a kid!!, she puts on sexy, domineering outfits and tackles Norbit onto the bed collapsing it! Five times in a row!! She washes her car in a bikini to the ‘Milkshake’ song (a similar fat joke already used in the abysmal ‘Date Movie’)!!! She sings the Pussycat Dolls ‘Don’t Cha’ song and actually believes it!! Bwahhaahaa!!!All of these scenes were, of course, in the trailer which I suppose led to the decent 95 million gross (who saw this film in theaters? I want names and addresses for a much deserved beatdown) because who can resist a good fat joke? Along with fat jokes, though, we get poop jokes, handicapped dog jokes (also making a appearance in ‘The Transformers’), black people eating ribs jokes, black people being pimp jokes, church jokes, a Chinese man labeling a penis as a eggroll joke, and so on. If any of this sounds remotely funny then A) rent or buy ‘Norbit’ and B) give me a name and address for your beatdown (given in the order that they were received, if you saw the film in theaters, sorry, only one beatdown per request).Whew, so now you’re probably asking yourself if the film could be that bad? Well, yes, yes it can. But I do have a few positive things to say about the film, although I stress a few. First is the seamless nature of Rick Baker’s magnificent makeup effects that look believable even in high definition. If the character is annoying, there is no denying the great technical accomplishments of the film where you never doubt for a second that Rasputia is an actual person and not just Eddie Murphy in drag…it’s just too bad all that technique couldn’t be applied to a more deserving creation like Sherman Klump. And the film isn’t completely devoid of laughs, just mostly.

I, for whatever reason, got a chuckle out of Rasputia’s ghetto snap response of ‘How YOU doing?’ every time she thought she got the one up on somebody. That’s something. And the Norbit character wasn’t particularly bad by himself, he just needed to be surrounded by a better film. Glad to get that pesky positive stuff out of the way. Luckily, all films are automatically elevated in HD and this film is no exception. The 1.78:1 AVC-encode is expectedly fantastic capturing all the fine detail of this color-filled “comedy”. If one has to watch ‘Norbit’, do it in HD, at least the brightly colored high-def images will fool the brain into thinking you’re watching something of substance. Another positive is the rarely seen extras in HD. A peculiar number of HD discs never bother with offering special features in HD, so I got to give props where props are due. First up with the special features is a 22-minute ‘Making of Norbit’ that’s mostly a fluff piece but has a few nuggets in there with some cast interviews. Rick Bakers great f/x get the spot light in ‘Man of a Thousand Faces’, and the last featurette is a 12 minute detailing of the various stunts of the film. Next is a whopping 14 deleted scenes (although just adding up to eight minutes), a 5-minute fake promo for the Marlon Wayan's fitness guru character, a still gallery and the theatrical trailer.With the solid dramatic turn in ‘Dreamgirls’, one would hope that that would inspire Murphy to aim a bit higher for his next film but ‘Starship Dave’ does not seem to be a step in the right direction for Murphy’s career (although I hope I’m wrong) and I obviously can’t recommend ‘Norbit’ to anybody but the staunchest of Eddie Murphy fans but I’ll be here waiting Eddie. Waiting, pining for your glorious return to yore, the days of SNL and biting stand-up humor. Come back to us man.