Movie Reviews: "A Thousand Words" *Earns a ZERO Rating on RottenTomatoes*

[JamesG]

Movie Reviews: A Thousand Words


Except for the fact that his latest movie will almost certainly turn out to be a flop, Eddie Murphy emerges virtually unscathed from the scathing reviews that A Thousand Words is receiving.

Eddie Murphy's character is the victim of a kind of curse that allows him to speak only a thousand words. Speak one word more than a thousand and he dies.





Michael Phillips in the Chicago Tribune calls him:

“a first-rate talent stuck in yet another third-rate piece of blech.”





Roger Ebert in the Chicago Sun-Times writes about the promotional poster:

“As a promotional idea that ranks right up there with Fred Astaire in leg irons.”

(The poster features Murphy with his mouth taped over)





Liam Lacey in the Toronto Globe and Mail observes:

“The idea of taking one of Hollywood’s best-known motor-mouths and reducing him to mugging and charades is definitely novel — and utterly misguided.”





But Mark Jenkins in the Washington Post suggests that all that critical vitriol may be unjustified.

The movie, he says, may merely be “more bland than actively bad.”

-IMDB News

[JamesG]

Eddie Murphy's A Thousand Words Among the Worst Reviewed Films in Rotten Tomatoes History
3/9/2012
by Tim Appelo


Eddie Murphy's attempted comeback movie A Thousand Words, made in 2008 and opening March 9, is the first wide-release movie of 2012 to earn a score of zero from the critics aggregated on the site Rotten Tomatoes.

The Hollywood Reporter reviewer Frank Scheck calls the film "a tired, formulaic comedy."





The zero score is an historic critical attack that puts Murphy in a special category.

"Since we put a score up for a film with as little as five reviews, there are a lot of very small films that have releases, but for wide releases, there are probably only 3 or 4 dozen zeroes going back to the start of the site in 1999," Rottentomatoes editor-in-chief Matt Atchity tells THR.

"On the list of the zeroes, it will probably come in at fifth or sixth worst in history, but since reviews are still coming in, it may rank higher (or lower depending on your POV) on that list."





Atchity estimates that there are at least 10,000 better-reviewed films on the site.

"'Bucky Larson' was the worst of the bunch last year, with a zero, and that joins the ranks of other 0% wide releases like 'Ballistic: Ecks vs. Sever', 'One Missed Call', Benigni's 'Pinocchio', and 'Killing Me Softly'," says Atchity. Rottentomatoes published a Worst of the Worst list in 2009.

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/eddie-murphy-a-thousand-words-reviews-rotten-tomatoes-298155

[isiahthomas]

It's really sad that Eddie has played in so many wack movies. It seems to me he's done more bad ones than good ones. I don't know why he would waste his time with wack movies like this. He might as well retire. Kerry Washington shouldn't have wasted her time with this either because she's a good actress. I also see John Weatherspoon is in this as a blind man. He's in the scene i saw when he asks Eddie is it ok to cross the street and Eddie was trying to say no and John went walking into the street when the light hadn't changed LOL. This is John's 3rd movie with Eddie because the other two they did was Boomerang and A Vampire In Brooklyn(this movie was also awful and i wish i hadn't seen it. I was surprised Angela Bassett was in this crap because she usually doesn't play in bad movies.).