Eddie Murphy plays a literary agent who talks all the time, but never listens or says anything sincere. He tries to schmooze this spiritual leader, Dr. Sinja, but reveals his total moral bankruptcy. He ends up with a mysterious tree in his backyard, and every time he speaks, leaves fall off the tree. Sinja concludes that once all the leaves fall off, Eddie Murphy will die, because that's what happens when a tree's leaves fall off.
You know, unless it's winter, in which case the tree is just conserving energy until there's enough daily sunlight to be worth producing leaves. Maybe he'll just go mute? I mean, Sinja outright admits he's never seen anything like this before.
So there's a lot of bits about him trying to work around not wanting to speak. Trying to close a book deal by using a bunch of dolls with pre-programmed phrases, hand gestures to get his coffee order, stuff like that. Which also means a lot of Eddie Murphy mugging for the camera as his character tries to convey some sort of message through bizarre facial expressions. That stuff wasn't very good.
I did laugh when he tried to argue with the tree because it counted "dickhead" as two separate words. That was funny. And the part near the end when he loses all hope, gets drunk, and decides he'll just use up the last of his words singing? That felt real. The tree, or the universe or whatever wants to be a dickhead about things? Screw it, at least go out on your terms.
Or he could have an 11th hour epiphany about what are the important things and what really needs to be said. I guess that works, too. It's boring, though.
4 comments:
This seems like the sort of thing Jim Carrey or Adam Sandler would have been in circa 2002, or Matthew Perry circa 2006.
One of their attempts at doing something sort of goofy, but also sort of dramatic (or melodramatic?) Yeah, I could see that. Took Eddie Murphy until 2012 to get around to that, but he was probably busy with Nutty Professor movies and whatnot.
I was surprised to discover this week that not only has he just finished a sequel to Coming to America but he's next going to do another Beverly Hills Cop.
I have a bit of a blind spot towards Eddie Murphy; it's as if he just sort of went away in 1999 so I'm always surprised to be reminded that he exists. I've even seen (and enjoyed!) films he's been in since then, and I've forgotten he's in them.
As someone who loves his work between 48 Hrs and Coming to America, including The Golden Child, it's a bit bizarre.
If you, or someone you love, suffers from Eddie Murphy Blindness, call 555-33343 for help and support.
Ha! That blindness is for the best. I think I have the same issue with regards to Harrison Ford, after maybe The Fugitive or Clear and Present Danger.
I watched the 3rd Beverly Hills Cop way too often in the '90s, because it was on Showtime a lot. Or HBO. Which is the same excuse I use for having watched Bio-Dome a lot.
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