In his latest comedy, Eddie Murphy becomes spiritually linked to a tree, which loses a leaf every time he speaks. (Don’t ask … just watch this trailer, and you might better understand.) With the film about to reach theaters, DreamWorks dropped a poster online (via BlackFilm.com), which we’re sharing below:



Wasn’t Tower Heist supposed to mark the return of 48 Hours and Beverly Hills Cop-era Murphy? This looks much more like the hokey, one-joke premises of Imagine That or Holy Man than Murphy’s earlier, inspired comedies. How old is that “baby-back ribs” joke? And isn’t the crossing-a-busy-street gag from the trailer lifted right out of Bowfinger? The new poster doesn’t do much else to sell me on A Thousand Words, which I fear will just be more watered down Murphy parceled out to the masses. Oh, and Brian Robbins is at the helm. His credits include Norbit, Meet Dave, Good Burger and the Tim Allen bomb, The Shaggy Dog. Yeesh.

Deep down, I’m not over the disappointment of Murphy no longer hosting the Oscars. Billy Crystal might be fine, but Murphy could have been transcendent. In fact, I wish Murphy has a thousand words to tell us how he really feels about losing his Oscar gig in the wake of the Brett Ratner scandal. That I’d pay top dollar to see. Instead, we get a Murphy-less Academy Awards, and a vanilla Murphy comedy reaching theaters weeks later. It feels like a one-two punch to the gut of moviegoers.