The troubles marring the relationship between fast-talking literary agent�Jack McCall (Eddie Murphy) and his wife and the mother of his baby�Caroline (Kerry Washington) are nothing next to the issues A Thousand Words�has in marrying wacky physical comedy and a new age exploration of absentee fathers. The film, which is directed by Norbit's�Brian Robbins and written by �Bruce Almighty's�Steve Koren, is being slung at audiences as a broad family laffer of the Jim Carrey school, but spends just as much time trying to be a serious tale about letting go of childhood resentments and accepting mortality. The "deep" bits aren't, despite a climactic shot in which Murphy actually frolics with his childhood self through a Terrence Malick-style dreamy field of wheat, and the parts that aim to be funny rarely succeed at that either, telegraphing their punchlines so far in advance that they don't really need to follow through on them.
Murphy's journey into the lucrative and yet so often awful world of family-friendly comedies is one that's been taken by plenty of comics, but he wears it worse than most, his edges sanded off and a too calculated look in his eyes as he prepares for the soggy reconciliations with which these stories always end. It doesn't help that even the pratfalls in A Thousand Words�look tired and recycled. McCall�climbs a tree to rescue a cat only to have it attack him, making him fall. McCall�bluffs his way to the front of a long line at Starbucks by pretending his wife's in labor. (I realize this is really�not the type of film at which to nitpick, but beyond the vaudeville-era mustiness of the gag, why would anyone believe that someone in a wild rush to the hospital would still stop for coffee?) McCall�causes multiple car accidents trying to…
Cameron Diaz Cameron Richardson Camilla Belle Carla Campbell Carla Gugino Carmen Electra Carol Grow Carrie Underwood
