Norbit (2007) User Reviews

Hilarious

[infoflessas · 5/10 · 22 April 2021]

I mean, do you really nip pick a movie where the cast is Eddie Murphy in different characters?

If you like Eddie Murphy this is the most Eddie Murphy movie in the world.

Not his best, but not his worst either

[maestro-20 · 5/10 · 13 February 2007]

Yes, the movie is racist and politically incorrect, but you know what? I think many people are offended because they miss the point. Brian Robbins and Eddie Murphy would be stupid to make a racist movie -- instead, they are making fun of it. Anyone who has seen a South Park episode would understand "satire" instead of calling it racist, homophobic, or whatever. I think that's what Eddie Murphy was trying to do here -- to poke fun at our own prejudices.

As a film, Norbit only succeeds halfway. It has some hilarious moments, but the film is unfocused and inconsistent. The script is bad, but I guess if you're used to comedies like Epic Movies, you'll be okay with bad comedy scripts. The stereotypes are so blatant and obvious that they are funny. When Mr. Wong (Murphy) said, "Of course I am racist!" he had a point. In a way, we are all prejudiced; we just don't want to admit to it.

Judging from the reaction of a packed theater on a Sunday night (blacks, whites, Asians, men, women, thin people, overweight people), I think people can have a good time with this one if they put aside their political correctness. It's just another crude, raunchy, silly comedy. And Eddie Murphy is funny as hell.

"How You Doin?"

[gabrielle-witherspoon · 3/10 · 29 January 2007]

This is a rather uneven comedy but it definitely has its funny moments. "How You Doin?" was Rasputia's (Norbit's dreadful, fat, psychotic wife) signature line throughout the movie. The movie really stretched the limits of believability because there was really no reason for Norbit to marry such a grotesque bully (except the possibility that he was afraid to say no).

This movie actually made me uncomfortable - even though I tried to "lighten up" and remember that it was just a silly comedy, I couldn't escape the fact that Eddie Murphy's character was totally abused by his wife physically, mentally and emotionally. His life was a living nightmare. I won't spoil it by telling you the outcome, but I kept thinking that by the end of the movie Norbit would have evolved into a more self-confident, and smartly dressed character. He was such a punkish victim throughout the movie that it was hard to remain sorry for him. He made you want to slap him (although he had his share of that already) and tell him to be a man and stand up for himself. It was hard to believe that a beautiful woman like Kate would be attracted to such a weak, sniveling coward no matter what he looked like - and Norbit was not attractive at all.

"Rasputia" was like an evil comic book villain - nobody could be that vile. She never seemed like a real individual just a fusion of shallow stereotypes.

Eddie Griffin is hilarious as an ex-pimp and his lines are the funniest thing about this movie.

Can Terry Crews play anything other than a hulking, sadistic thug? The only time he played against type was in the movie White Girls.

Cuba Gooding, Jr. was wasted in this movie as was Thandie Newton (although she hasn't shown much in the way of actual talent in any movie she's appeared. She is beautiful but that is about it). Neither part called for any particular acting or comedic ability. They were just foils for Eddie Murphy's character.

Clifton Powell is becoming a stereotype too. I thought he had possibilities when he played Morris Chestnut's father in The Brothers, but his roles have gone downhill since then.

This wasn't a good movie and as I stated, only had funny moments. I don't know why this movie was made because there was no real point to it - just a chance for Eddie Murphy to once again, play 2 or 3 characters.

Too Funny

[nattiedred · 11 February 2007]

I seriously liked this movie. It showed also that fat people can wear a bathing suit at the water park and do what skinny girl do as well no matter what. It showed that a skinny guy accepts a huge girl, as you can see in norbit, he saw as big at first and then they came to like each other somewhat. It is just humor, people are making big deals about the movie, but what about when he did the nutty professor, and so forth, how come no problems with that, I mean we have a Fat scientist in the lab and he got to a nice looking skinny girl, but there wasn't any parts in the movie stating that the nutty professor was toooooo fat and same thing with this movie, People need to get a grip and just relax it is only humor, We had Marlon in Little Man, no problems there right, and then we also had White chicks no problems there, so Black people need to chill out and relax, it is just a funny movie, nothing derogatory.

A new standard for the distasteful

[janos451 · 1/10 · 8 February 2007]

As they say in "Casablanca," I've been misinformed. Still, most of the responsibility belongs with me.

Misinformed by the promising cast of "Norbit" - Eddie Murphy, Thandie Newton, Clifton Powell, Cuba Gooding Jr. - a whole bunch of talented folk. My fault: not connecting the title with those horrid advertising snippets where an 800-pound female Murphy squashes a sort of male Murphy like a bug, with an unbelievably stereotyped bucktooth "Chinese" Murphy doing unspeakable things.

Honestly, I did not make the connection, and perhaps if I did, I might have thought those preview shots don't tell the whole story. Well, in fact, Murphy-squashing-Murphy is not the worse thing in "Norbit," although it's repeated many times.

The worse thing in "Norbit" is the whole of it: a nonstop, unrelieved, offensive, unfunny gross-out of unprecedented juvenile vulgarity. Think of Stephen Chow at his recent worst, multiplied by several degrees of all-around indignities.

Take it from an incorrigible movie fan who enjoyed half (the first half, specifically) of "Ishtar" (supposedly the "worst movie ever") and, more recently, found the cinematography of several otherwise terminally vapid movies "interesting" - there is nothing worthwhile in "Norbit" whatsoever, not even watching the beautiful Newton behaving like a fig here.

Brian Robbins, a TV producer in real life, is maligned here as the director, Jay Scherick and David Ronn (co-writers of the Martin Lawrence-botched "National Security") came up with a story of gore, body-function accidents, relentless pummeling of men, women and children of all races, although with more venom and contempt for blacks and Asians than the few token whites suffer.

What is the plot, beyond skinny Murphy being married to, and squashed by, elephantine Murphy? I don't want to spoil it, but basically that's what the story is.

"Norbit" sets a new standard for the worst Hollywood can conceivably produce.

The tag line says it all.

[LordDimple · 2/10 · 13 February 2007]

If you've ever made a big mistake, watching this movie will be another one.

Almost physically painful to watch.

Norbit isn't nearly as bad as The Adventures of Pluto Nash, but it's a hell of a lot worse than Beverly Hills Cop 3, which was awful! I could not stand all of the fat jokes, they were not like the jokes in the Nutty Professor, which were playful, if a little bit rude. These were just plain hateful. Don't get me wrong, I really like Eddie Murphy, and I was really hoping that he was going to dig himself out of the pit of below-average movies he's starred in lately. I missed Dream Girls, but I heard it was very good. Too bad he had to follow it up with this movie.

The plot is unoriginal, and the writing is very plain.

Wait for the DVD, get extremely drunk, and watch it then.

Tagline runs true... have you ever made a really big mistake?

[gdahl4 · 1/10 · 9 February 2007]

Walking into the movie one must admit they aren't expecting the same comedic genius as a Mel Brook's film, but perhaps that was the main draw of "Norbit" in the first place. Personally, I walked in expecting a ridiculously vile and obscenely immature show of comedy. I walked away seeing a lackluster prequel to Dr. Dolittle and The Nutty Proffesor combined. It would be honestly hard to say anything in this film is worth seeing, aside from the few momentary chuckles provided by Eddie Griffin and Katt Williams as stereotypical pimps (a consistently typecast role both have fallen into).

As it can be best surmised, Eddy Murphy has inadvertently passed the torch, from his hysterically funny prime in stand up comedy (see: Eddy Murphy - RAW) and the Beverly Hills Cops franchise, to the mainstream Hollywood "everything is predictable" yawn-fest which is NORBIT. The script is nothing more than the recycled remains of every romantic comedy stir fried with an inexcusable amount of fat jokes and simmered over an unbelievably whipped pathetic excuse for a main character by the utterly incomprehensible name of Norbit.

Simply stated, if you are over the age of 10, you will not enjoy a single second of this movie. If you want to see a funny fat movie with Eddy Murphy rent The Nutty Professor and save yourself two laugh less hours of gaggingly pathetic fat jokes and continuity errors. It seems Norbit is one big joke, oddly enough however, no one is laughing.

Not very bad

[Hint523 · 4/10 · 9 February 2007]

Norbit is a movie about "wimpy" Eddie Murphy getting married to "fat and mean" Eddie Murphy after being orphaned and left to live with "Chinese racist" Eddie Murphy. He can't divorce his wife because she has 3 older brothers that will beat the crap out of him. He is in love with his childhood sweetheart (Newton) who wants to get married to another man (Gooding Jr). It had a lot of funny parts, and a lot of parts that were given away on the trailer (as always). I liked it because it didn't rant about how bad fat people are, which is what most of these comedies do, and it didn't have any parts that made me roll my eyes. There were a lot of REALLY funny parts at a fair and in a church, and a lot of parts that were bad, but it rounded itself out to a five, meaning not positive OR negative.

Only see it if you want to. And it's not as bad as people are saying.

No Brain cells,Funny movie.....Have Brain cells, Not Funny.

[ducktape_solutions · 1/10 · 22 February 2007]

This movie is hilarious, unless you have more than one brain cell. If you have more than one brain cell you might find this movie offensive. If you have more than two brain cells you might find this movie tedious. You don't have to be obese to be offended by this movie, it offends all. The movie starts out with young Norbit being thrown out of a moving car at the door of an orphanage. If you think babies getting thrown out of cars is funny, than this movie is for you. But that's not all, pay your $9.00 now and you'll also get a collection of humorless fat jokes, fart jokes and nauseating sex gags. All this delivered to you by the character of Norbit the lisping nerd, Rasputia the ugly inside and out Big Momma and Mr. Wong an appalling Asian-American caricature. In summary, if you have three or more brain cells, see something else.

At least 50% of the audience liked it.

[junaidaslam · 7/10 · 15 April 2007]

I went to see this film on my birthday with my friend Paul. There were low expectations from both of us and we came out pleasantly surprised. We were laughing throughout the movie and it turned out to be a good birthday for me.

The other two people in the cinema were not as impressed but there's no accounting for taste.

I honestly cannot understand why this film has been critically mauled. It doesn't pretend to be something it's not. It's a film aimed for laughs and it does exactly what it delivers.

To fully appreciate and understand this film you need an enlightened and intelligent sense of humour to comprehend the genius film that is Norbit. People like Paul and I are just very rare.

Don't bother

[brummie88 · 1/10 · 12 March 2007]

Oh my god, i don't even know what they were thinking when they made this film, i went to see it and didn't laugh once its not just that the humour didn't appeal to me, i don't imagine that sort of humour appeals to any1. The film is packed full of racist, fat jokes, and outright awful humour. Another thing that surprised me was all the "big" names in this movie i can only assume Eddie Murphy pulled in some favours even though the cast still cannot hide this movies complete failure to hit any sort of funny note. I would say wait for the movie to come on TV so at least you don't have to pay, but if you were watching this movie on TV its highly likely that you'd turn over before the end.

"How you doing?"

[UniqueParticle · 8/10 · 9 June 2021]

Such an odd wonderful guilty pleasure that is not appreciated much but I enjoy it. Eddie Murphy did quite a few peculiar roles over his career I love that even not many do. I don't know how he plays several characters so well it's impressive! Great how much story driven Norbit is that's important sometimes especially to some people. The kind of movie you could say what the hell am I watching lol?

Why don't people like this?

[kenc-05236 · 7/10 · 25 June 2021]

I get some people just like this type of humor and that's fine. But if you're into crude humor this movie is absolutely hilarious. Yeah some jokes aged worse than others but still funny.

The story is typical guy falls in love but something is in the way of it. The movie doesn't try more than what it is and makes work of what it could.

Also there Eddie Murphy, Terry Crews, and Cat Williams. Who else do u need?

Poor Black Trash

[bartireid · 1/10 · 4 September 2007]

As a self confessed intelligent black male watching this I felt nothing but disgust and vitriol for it. I was left pondering the question why are people still making dreck like this and flogging it to the masses.

All this movie does is sell the same old stereotypes in the same old package; I found some other reviews on here rather poignant when they describe the movie as misogynistic and anti-fat because the reality is it's also anti black.

It's hard to tell which parts are deliberate and which aren't but is there any doubting that the least vile and offensive characters are the least "black" or at least what this movie tries to indicate as black. Mainly you have a light skinned Thandie Newton who's dodges all stereotypes and effectively is the films protagonist.

Then you get on to the cringe worthy elements such as Rasputia who is possibly the most horrid representation of a black woman you'll ever see fat, lazy, aggressive and just plain stupid. Added to this you have horribly over used stereotypes where you almost could imagine the writers deliberating over shall we have the food theme as BBQ Ribs or fried chicken just pathetic. The conclusion at the end with the pimps (Eddie Griffin) in church is just horrendous as well. Whilst the final insult is the unveiling of Cuba Gooding Jr's character to have a string of children to different mothers.

The worst thing is Eddie Murphy has made a living out of the promoting the black stereotypes obesity, promiscuity, and criminality you name it yet producers will still allow him to make this trash as the ill informed will always just see this garbage for all the wrong reasons.

I am still waiting for a Black American Beauty something that is sharp, witty and mildly challenging, Eddie Murphy needs to realise that this stuff was just about acceptable 10-15 years ago, now its nothing short of banal.

Sad

[BlackFilm · 9 February 2007]

First let me say ... I am an Eddie Murphy fan. I think he's a comic genius. And that's why I was so surprised to see him star in and even write such a low level and offensive comedy.

The first few minutes of the film started out with a little promise, but it didn't take long for the film to fall to such a low level that I cringed from early in until the movie was over. And even though I watched to nearly the end, I demanded my money back. It's only the second time I've ever done that, and I'm an avid film goer.

What was so offensive? I don't know where to begin. Most obviously, every "fat" gag in the book was used. Eddie Murphy plays an overweight woman who is ugly and evil, and every nasty thing you can think to say about her is said. To make it worse, the leading lady is Thandie Newton who is extremely thin, which only goes to further emphasize the other extreme.

Maybe Eddie Murphy thought he could get away with this because he shows, in The Nutty Professor, how an overweight man can "get the girl". But, really, that just shows the extreme double standard that remains when it comes to overweight men versus women.

Now, I'm a realist, and I know that the double standard is not Eddie Murphy's fault. Still, he plays on it here in such a nasty way that it offended me, an open minded, in-shape male. And for those who argue that it's the character's attitude and not her weight that made her "the bad guy", then why make her fat in the first place. And why have so many nasty fat jokes.

The movie was offensive on other levels too. The racial humor wasn't funny. There are some lines with attempts at humor that really go too far. Many of you who have seen it will understand what I mean. And those who haven't, I hope you don't support this film out of curiosity. Please, wait for cable. There is nothing in this that you can't wait to see.

I heard that it was Eddie Murphy's brother who came up with this idea. If EM did this as a favor to his brother, he could have done his brother, and himself a bigger favor by bringing Charlie in on a better project and tossing this script.

On the one positive note: Eddie Murphy does put his all into these characters as always. His job as Norbit gets lost in the low class, low level "comedy". Even though I just saw the film, I had to really remember that his performance as Norbit was decent. All I can think about is how offended I was, and how thoroughly depressed an overweight woman sitting at the end of my row looked throughout most of the film (she left before I did).

It's good to know that our society has not moved up when it comes to harsh jokes on racism and obesity

[Smells_Like_Cheese · 1/10 · 10 June 2007]

I was so excited to see Norbit, from the trailer, this actually looked like a very funny movie. When I saw the rating on IMDb, I thought maybe there was a chance people just took the movie too seriously, I wanted to check it out for myself. I don't mind fat jokes here and there, I liked the movie Shallow Hal, I also used to be heavy and lost all the weight, so I know what it's like to feel isolated in a society that praises thin people. But I never took it personally, I make fat jokes still for fun. But Norbit took it not only to a very racist level, but to a level where it makes it look like big people are hideous and mean monsters and that it's alright to ridicule them. The funny thing is, I wasn't intending on taking this movie seriously, until I saw it and did not laugh once.

Norbit is a little whiny guy who has been pushed around his whole life. He was raised in an orphanage by Asian parents, when he is getting bullied one day, a plump black girl saves his butt, and offers to be his girlfriend, well, she kinda forces him to be. She takes him into her family where the men are a bit violent and have taken over the town. Norbit gets married to Rebestia, the little black girl that saved him, and they have a miserable life together. But he sees an old friend who is an attractive thin woman, and she wants to buy the orphanage and have Norbit help her with it, but it's hard when his obnoxious overweight wife won't let him.

I don't know if Eddie read this script and actually thought it was funny, because it went onto a "Steve Urkel" level where Rebestia wasn't so funny as just more obnoxious. To be honest, none of the characters were funny or sympathetic at all. This was a very sad movie and should have never been made, I don't know what these actors were thinking, but this was not a funny comedy. Stay away from it, this is the point where Eddie Murphy is just loosing it in his career.

1/10

Entertaining I guess?

[turnmaxw · 5/10 · 3 September 2023]

If you are willing to accept the characters as what they are, shallow and silly stereotypes of stereotypes, if you are willing to embrace unoriginality as a choice intentionally made to generate humor that only works because it is expected, if you are willing to watch Eddie Murphy doing what Eddie Murphy does worst, then, and only then, will you find this movie making you laugh your ass off at the pure stupidity and unadulterated filth that appears before you. This is easier if you have a few like minded individuals to watch it with you. If instead you choose to watch it as a bad comedy, or worse as an actual movie, I'm sorry to say you are out of luck. Nothing will catch you off guard, the jokes will fall flat, and you will walk away wishing you hadn't spent 1:40 of your life watching literally nothing but cigarette butts on the street. Watch at your own risk and maybe you will find that this is the movie for you.

Unpleasant, Not Funny and Gross

[claudio_carvalho · 1/10 · 21 January 2008]

In 1967, the orphan Norbit (Eddie Murphy) was abandoned by his parents when he was a baby. He was raised by the owner of the orphanage Mr. Wong (Eddie Murphy), and becomes a great friend of the also orphan Kate (Thandie Newton). When Kate is adopted, Norbit feels lonely but is protected by the fat and big Rasputia. They grow up, Rasputia (Eddie Murphy) becomes a monstrous woman and they get married. When Kate returns to her hometown decided to buy Mr. Wong's orphanage, Norbit recalls his good moments and falls in love for her. But Rasputia, her gangster brothers and Kate's fiancé Deion Hughes (Cuba Gooding Jr.) have other intentions with the orphanage.

I have no problems with movies with low-level and scatological jokes; actually I like most of them. However, "Norbit" is unpleasant, not funny and extremely gross, with most of the characters despicable or nasty, and uses all the possible and existing fat gag and clichés. What have surprised me most is that I spent more than one hundred minutes watching this "comedy" without laughing. Therefore something is really wrong with this movie. My vote is one.

Title (Brazil): "Norbit"

Atrocious and pretty offensive

[TheLittleSongbird · 1/10 · 4 October 2010]

I do like Eddie Murphy, and he has made some good films especially Beverley Hills Cop, 48 Hours, Shrek, Coming to America and Trading Places and Nutty Professor is better than it is made out to be. But then he made some horrible films as well, Norbit unfortunately scraping the bottom of the barrel. While not the best and most original story, I liked the idea for Norbit. So what ruined it? Eddie Murphy is good when given good material and doing numerous roles seemed great at first, it worked in The Nutty Professor. However, the characters he plays especially Rasputia are really clichéd and stereotypical. The film looks cheap too, and the direction does nothing to showcase Murphy's talents. The worst part were the jokes, none of them were funny, in fact some of them were pretty offensive especially the ones at the expense of Rasputia's obesity, and any film involving gags about oral sex, bikini-line waxing or plans of turning the orphanage into a titty bar makes me wonder why the certificate isn't higher. Thandie Newton looks beautiful and does try, but in the end it is yet another case of wasted talent. The only redeeming quality was the make-up, that was actually quite impressive, but with such a poor film with a script and jokes as diabolical as they are and stereotypes as long as your arm that seems like faint praise. Best avoided. 1/10 Bethany Cox

Not p.c. anymore, but it's still funny

[HotToastyRag · 7/10 · 29 September 2021]

If you liked the humor in The Nutty Professor, you'll laugh yourself silly while watching Norbit. Nowadays, it's not acceptable to make fun of unattractive, overweight women, but back in 2007 it was still alright to make ugly, fat jokes. And it was still alright for Eddie Murphy to dress up as a woman and make the audience laugh. I thought this movie was hilarious, but I'm including a little disclaimer for the modern feminists out there.

Those of you who still like to laugh at politically incorrect jokes will want to rent Norbit after a hard week at work. It's very silly and pure escapism. Eddie Murphy plays three parts: the nerdy, meek title character, his adoptive Chinese father, and his overweight, overbearing wife. The entire movie of just the unhappily married couple would have been funny enough, but adding in a love triangle amps up the motivation of Norbit's wife to get even more aggressive - which in turn, becomes even funnier! Thandiwe Newton plays Norbit's childhood sweetheart, but good luck getting a divorce! Can two sweet souls find happiness, or is there bound to be a large, obnoxious, hilarious fly in the ointment? Rent Norbit for a very silly and fun evening.

Warning: A complete disaster, don't waste money

[anthonypao · 1/10 · 6 July 2008]

Norbit is - by far- the worst comedy i've seen in my whole life and it even competes "epic movie" when it comes to stupidity. The performances of the actors are absurd, poor and because of the fact that nothing in this "so called" comedy can make you laugh, the actors end up using some "classic" yet boring methods such as farting , to make it funny.

Eddie Murphy really let me down, not that i expected a masterpiece from him but this was a complete let-down.

I was bored to death, fell asleep twice and finally , when i woke up and saw that 20 minutes of this crap were left i forwarded it at 32x speed. Honestly, this was the time i enjoyed it most. So if you want to watch a good comedy, stay away from "norbit"

Classic Comedy!

[briannanewton · 9/10 · 17 June 2021]

I hate how many reviews have low scores. This movie, with Eddie Murphy, is a classic comedy! I would recommend giving it a shot. It's one of my all time favorite movies. I would recommend it being for ages 14+. I sometimes base the movies I watch off of reviews, but saw this far before I did that, and I wish this had better scoring! Give it a shot!

A funny film, so cry me a river.

[uofmcanesfan311 · 7/10 · 11 February 2007]

Although it wasn't the absolute funniest movie I've ever seen, Norbit turned out to be a fun filled movie with lots of big names appearing throughout the flick.

The plot is rather obvious, but the characters in the movie create a great comedy setting that can be enjoyed by all, regardless of race and stereotyping. Eddie Murphy does a great job with his three big roles in the movie and the majority of the film kept a smile on my face. It's good to see that Murphy can still do movies that aren't made to adapt to the humor of seven year old's.

If you're offended by sophomoric humor, you might not want to watch ANY movie, let alone Norbit.

Two Words...

[derek281 · 1/10 · 28 February 2007]

PURE GARBAGE!!! i wasted life in the theater today watching this trash which i thought was going to be funny. i found myself just sitting in the theater with one other person looking @ the screen. i did not crack a single laugh or smirk the whole time. I wasted time and movie viewing this mess. It was as if the characters had no clue. If this was Cuba Gooding's "comeback" he picked the wrong movie to do it in, Thandie Newton if gorgeous but she was pointless, Marlon Wayans wasn't even funny, and Eddie Murphy's Rasputia character was simply annoying. After she would say something that dumb "how you doin" line just bored me. In conclusion, the only thing anyone would get out of this movie is pure baffoonery and modern day "cooning"... STAY FAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRR AWAY FROM NORBIT!!!

Sickening

[ReelReal · 9 February 2007]

Any points that Eddie Murphy might have gained from his performance in Dreamgirls was surely negated, and even trumped by this vile concoction of distasteful images and vulgarly offensive "comedy" that is Norbit. There's not much else to be said about the film.

I would expect this type of buffoonery from the Wayans brothers (it was no shock that Marlon was a character in this). And Katt Williams has made his whole career as a comedian by playing on a racial stereotype and performing self hating and degrading comedy. But I figured Eddie Murphy for much more class than this.

My sister has pointed out to me on a number of occasions that Eddie Murphy has a dark skin complexion complex. She has noticed his choices of leading women, and even his tendency to make darker skinned women the "bad guy" in his films while lighter skinned women are the desirable women of the main character's dreams. I'd argue with her, but I was never convinced of my own stance. Today I say she's right. (And I tell you, I feel terrible for that girl who played Young Rasputia.) ...

I found this film to be every bit as offensive as Soul Plane, and likely more damaging. Soul Plane was nothing more than a 90 minute skit based on stereotypes. The people in that film didn't have a lot of choices as far as their film careers go, so they did that piece of crap. But Norbit is a film that is legitimized by the presence of a true star with choices. And though I found it to be very offensive as a black man, I thought that it was much more abusive to overweight people and to people who don't fit a certain ideal of beauty.

The film is sickening.