Richard Pryor, Where Art Thou? Eddie Murphy Needs You!

Norbit is Off Its Orbit . .

"Norbit", in a theater near you, is not even slapstick. It's . . It's . . . reversed-engineered condescension, an absurd demand on the viewing public that if we can all laugh together at physical "otherness" ("too fat", too thin", "too yellow", "too black" etc., you name it) then that's what "feeling At One with humanity" must feel like. Really, now . . . Some of us think otherwise....

Norbit Rice (Eddie Murphy) --note the wordplay in Norbit, as in "In orbit", i.e., "I'd rather be pretending I'm not here rather than face the horror of my fate") , the protagonist, finds himself as a new-born being thrown out of a truck window and landing on the steps of an orphanage set outside Anytown, USA, and run by Mr. Wong (yes, Eddie Murphy, thanks to Rick Baker, special FX Master), a Chinese family man. Clunk! The truck disappears into the night, and thus starts Norbit's life as an orphan. Geek-looking and shy, he befriends Kate (played by Thandie Newton later as a grown-up), a little Asian girl in the orphanage, and they become soul-mates. Right after the two children create their "wedding ceremony" under a magic tree, the little girl is taken away by an adopting family. Norbit is inconsolable, and as he grows up amidst bullying from other orphans, he gets rescued one day by a "very" hefty girl by the name of Rasputia. (Rasputia . . . No-Respite . . . Rasputin . . get it? . . i.e., the dark counselor to the crown of Russia before the fall of the Empire in 1918... Now that's truly funny!) Rasputia grabs his hand and doesn't let go. Literally. He becomes her protege, and later starts working as an accountant at Rasputia's three brothers' crooked construction company in town. By then, Rasputia (Eddie Murphy; no, not a typo) has become . . . enormous --for instance, she's later denied entrance to the local amusement park's water-slide because of her size. The two get married (Eddie Murphy and Eddie Murphy) blessed by the enthusiastic (and "racially-charged," might I say) wedding toast of Mr. Wong (Eddie Murphy).