Norbit
Eddie Murphy stars and stars in this very broad and raucous comedy that finds the Oscar-nominated Dreamgirls actor revisiting the multiple-character shtick that worked so well for him in Coming to America and The Nutty Professor. The latter’s makeup-effects artist, Rick Baker, once again transforms Murphy into a variety of grotesques and caricatures, including the hugely fat, monstrous Rasputia, the Asian Mr. Wong, and the timorous Norbit, a nervous orphan raised by Wong and married to Rasputia. The latter, a member of a construction family with a plan to turn Wong’s orphanage into a strip club, is a relentlessly narcissistic shrew who puts the screws on Norbit at every turn, especially when he rediscovers his love for an old friend, Kate (Thandie Newton). Kate’s wish to buy and maintain the orphanage herself is secretly compromised by her fiancĂ© (Cuba Gooding, Jr.), who is in cahoots with Rasputia’s family and using Norbit to further their agenda.
