Another Thousand Words

The days when Eddie Murphy was a guarantee for amusing comedies and full box offices are long gone. Except for a few slight glimmers of hope, Murphy has in recent years specialized primarily in very simple-minded family entertainment that fell somewhere between inoffensive and unbearably flat. Now Murphy has teamed up with director Brian Robbins, who we have to thank for the unspeakably clunky Norbit and the at least occasionally amusing Man, Dave! for another shallow bit of movie fun, the premise of which actually sounds pretty promising.

Jack McCall (Murphy) is an up-to-the-minute frahling who always manages to land really big fish with his quick mouth. Now he wants to dare his biggest challenge so far: the enormously popular guru Dr. Sinja (Cliff Curtis), who did not want to distribute his teachings commercially so far, is to be won over for Jack's employer. In fact, Jack, who is spoiled for success, manages to sneak into one of Dr. Sinja's classes and make the guru's offer palatable. When he finds an unusual tree behind his house that evening, the same tree he saw on Dr. Sinja's property just hours before, he believes it's a gift from his newest client. But far from it: the tree turns out to be a real curse, as it loses a leaf with every word Jack utters from then on. Once it has lost all its leaves, not only does the tree die, but so does the person with whom it has a very special connection. While Jack hopes that Dr. Sinja will find a solution to his problem, he tries to glide through his everyday life without speaking if possible. But both his already somewhat tarnished relationship with his wife Caroline (Kerry Washington) and his professional career quickly suffer from Jack's speechlessness. and so he must figure out how best to use the thousand words he now has left so as not to lose everything he holds dear...

Another Thousand Words makes use of a starting idea that is actually not unfunny. That Eddie Murphy, of all people, who has become known as a chatterbox with rapid-fire mouth, is forced to rein in his most effective weapon would have offered a lot of potential for genuinely funny and perhaps even original moments. But aside from a few nice little laughs, director Brian Robbins doesn't take advantage of any of these opportunities, instead giving them away in favor of over-the-top silliness and flat gags. Granted, compared to Norbit, Another Thousand Words is pretentious head-scratching. But given what could have been made of the story's neat basic idea, the completely over-the-top grimaces with which Murphy struggles through the routinely cranked-down production are just weak and unfunny in an almost sad sort of way.

Probably the film's biggest flaw is that it's not really grotty, it's just inoffensive and shallow. There's barely a moment that leaves an impression in any way, shape, or form, be it positive, or negative. The movie passes the viewer by completely inconsequentially, only shaking him up with small laughs every now and then. There have been much worse and more annoying movies that made it into our cinemas. But if this is really reason enough to justify the purchase of an overpriced movie ticket is very questionable. Therefore: very loyal Eddie Murphy fans and viewers who like very simple US comedies will certainly be quite entertained here. But if you expect something more, you can save the ticket money

An article by Frankfurt-Tipp