Norbit is Eddie Murphy's favorite form of cinematic masturbation. By acting as a variety of characters, the comedian gets to showcase his chameleon-like ability to play to any stereotype thrown his way. Murphy's a talented guy, and if there were anything to this film besides fat jokes and cultural clich‚s, he might be good enough to carry it - he's certainly done that before.
Unfortunately, the film fails to back him up with crucial elements like plot and dialogue, turning Norbit into little more than an awkward mash-up of Murphy's stock characters.
Norbit's wife Rasputia drives the movie. She's Murphy's fail-safe character: the big, bawdy black woman - and apparently she's the one who's supposed to entertain us. As an ancillary character, she might be tolerable; as our leading lady, she's really, really not. Fat, foul-mouthed and physically abusive, she's the source of every gross-out joke in the middle school canon.
Each time Norbit attempts to leave Rasputia, we hope he's going to succeed. Not because we care about him (he, like all the characters, is far too one-dimensional for that) but because it'd be nice if we could move on from her - watching Rasputia is a genuinely unpleasant experience. Murphy's had success with this brand of humor in the past because he's fleshed out his stories and provided something worth watching besides just his zany acting (see The Nutty Professor). When he's failed to do that, his films have fallen flat (see The Nutty Professor II). What we have here fits squarely into the latter category.
