2012 Review #20: A Thousand Words

A Thousand Words

Rated PG-13

1 Hour 31 Minutes

Starring

Eddie Murphy

Cliff Curtis

Kerry Washington
Clark Duke

Story

After stretching the truth on a deal with a spiritual guru, literary agent Jack McCall finds a Bodhi tree on his property. Its appearance holds a valuable lesson on the consequences of every word we speak.  

Rotten Tomatoes Score

0% (out of 50 reviews)

(Dated jokes (A Thousand Words was shot in 2008) and removing Eddie Murphy's voice -- his greatest comedic asset -- dooms this painful mess from the start.)

My Grade

C-

Well this new Eddie Murphy film has really been shit on pretty hard core by fans and critics all over. The movie tells the story of a book agent who enjoys to use his words a little to much. When he fibs to a spiritual guru, a mysterious tree pops up in his backyard. He soon realizes that with every word he speaks, mouths, or writes, a leaf falls off the tree. What happens when all the leaves fall off? Death to Eddie Murphy apparently.

To me, this movie was a bit similar to the Jim Carrey mid 90's comedy "Liar, Liar". Both involve a crazy curse that works against the main characters primary flaw. Both are films that teach said characters to look deep into themselves and become reborn figuratively speaking. Liar Liar is a far superior film, and it is miles funnier. The main issue I had with this particular movie is that it tried to incorporate heart into the story way to late in the game. About half way through the movie they show us glimpses into the main characters childhood. Showed us how the father abandoned the family, etc, etc. So in order for him to stop the trees leaves from falling he has to find peace with this situation with this fathers abandonment, his mothers illness and his problems at home. But this all came way to late in the movie and was so poorly written that I just didn't care.

Was it funny? Here's the thing, what is Eddie Murphy known best for? His loud mouth antics. When you strip that away from someone like him and more than half the film is him being quiet...you are gonna lose a lot of points in the humor department. He does physical comedy pretty well here, but it's his voice, his delivery that makes him what he his, and it's all but gone here in most of this film. He's churned out a handful or two of bombs the past few years. Let's face it, he hasn't picked a good funny movie since the 90's. He had a small revival with "Dreamgirls" a few years back when he got his first Oscar Nomination. But then has just fallen off the grid, especially when he does crap like "Norbit" and "Meet Dave". Arguably, A Thousand Words is the funniest Murphy has been in years (outside of his voice over work from the Shrek films as Donkey), but it still wasn't enough to give us that old charm he used to have.

This movie just suffers from poor execution and bad comedic timing. Don't sacrifice someone like Eddie Murphy to do gimmicky and physical humor when he should be using his voice. I know he needs the work, but they could have found someone better to work this one out. Someone more relevant. Even still though, I don't think this movie could have been saved. It just wasn't fresh or original. They did nothing unique with this story concept. The movie took over 4 years to reach theaters, which was a sign right off the bat that this was going to be a poopfest of a movie. I couldn't give this movie a D though, because there were some OK moments and I did laugh a few times. But honestly, this is a movie that if you skipped, you may not be missing all that much. If a movie is intended to be funny, then it should be funny. Right?