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Actor, comedian, and singer Eddie Murphy has been a fixture in the entertainment industry since the 1980s. The now 62-year-old Murphy is widely regarded as one of the most successful entertainers in Hollywood, and has a Golden Globe Cecil B. DeMille Award, a Mark Twain Prize for American Humor, a Grammy Award, an Emmy Award, and a multi-million-dollar net worth to prove it.
Despite these remarkable successes, not every project the father of ten has taken on has been a critical hit. In fact, a surprising number of Eddie Murphy’s movies, including some that achieved resounding commercial success, have been chastised by critics. Here’s why, despite starring in over fifty films and possessing undeniable comedic flair, Murphy has constantly had to endure severe panning from critics.
How Many Movies Has Eddie Murphy Been In?
Eddie Murphy has been a household name since he ascended to the limelight in the early 1980s as a regular on the long-running sketch comedy show, Saturday Night Live. Apart from being a trailblazer in the stand-up comedy arena, Murphy has also gained notoriety for being one of the most talented, albeit unpredictable actors of his generation. From his breakout role in 48 Hrs to his recent resurgence in Dolemite Is My Name, Murphy has proven to have almost unmatched comedic aptitude; able to imbue even the blandest of characters with almost palpable wit and charm.
With a film career spanning nearly half a century, the now 62-year-old actor has starred in over 50 films. From the freewheeling Detroit cop, Axel Foley, in Beverly Hills Cop to the streetwise con artist Billy Ray Valentine in Trading Places, the father of ten has brought to life a wide range of truly unique and unforgettable characters.
Why Eddie Murphy’s Movies Aren’t Highly Ranked
Though undeniably impressive, Eddie Murphy’s film career has not been without its pitfalls. His debut as the wisecracking Reggie Hammond in the 1982 action comedy, 48 Hours, and subsequent performances in hits like Trading Places, Coming To America, and Beverly Hills Cop endeared him to fans and critics alike. However, by the time the 1990s drew to a close, the once revered Murphy was getting chastised by critics at almost every turn.
Upon the release of his 1990s flop The Nutty Professor, Entertainment Weekly critic Owen Gleiberman claimed that Murphy had “turned into a steroid parody of himself: hard and imperious where he’d once been light and supple,” become “an abstraction of celebrity — ego without joy, the strutting King of Nothing,” “began to perform as if he wanted us to love him simply for being Eddie Murphy,” and developed “a contempt for comedy, for entertainment, for stardom itself.”
Murphy’s career also saw a decline in the 1990s due, at least in part, to him taking on terrible roles simply because the money was too good to pass up. The Norbit star admitted to being blinded by money during his 1984 appearance on Saturday Night Live, where he chastised one of his biggest flops; Best Defense.
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“After I did 48 Hours and Trading Places, all these scripts started comin’ from everywhere, and I picked up a script called Best Defense,” he said. “There’s a movie that sucked real bad! At first, I wasn’t gonna do it because I read the script, and I felt like I was an actor at first. But the money they gave me to do Best Defense, y’all would have done Best Defense too,” he continued. “I was like, ‘What?! How dare you give me a script like this! Oh, that much money? Let’s go!’ Best Defense turned out to be the worst movie ever done in the history of anything, and all of a sudden, I wasn’t that hot no more.”
Things took an even uglier turn in the 2010s, when Murphy had to bear the humiliation of having not one, but four Golden Raspberry Awards, including one ‘Worst Actor of The Decade’ award to his name. So severe was the criticism that Murphy almost retired from acting.
“I was making sh***y movies. I was like, ‘this sh** ain’t fun. They’re giving me Razzies.’ Motherf***ers gave me the ‘worst actor ever’ Razzie’. So I thought, ‘maybe it’s time to take a break,’” he said of his eight-year break from acting in a 2019 interview with Marc Maron’s WTF podcast. “I was only gonna take a break for a year, then all of a sudden six years go by, and I’m sitting on the couch, and I could sit on the couch and not get off it, but I don’t want to the last bunch of s*** they see me do [to be] bulls***.”
Eddie Murphy’s Worst Ranked Movie
Though Eddie Murphy has made multiple awful movies, at least according to critics, a few truly stand head and shoulders above the rest. One of these is the 1990s comedy, Norbit, which despite grossing a whopping $159.3 million at the box office (against a $60 million budget) received heavy panning from critics upon its debut.
One particularly grating review came from Scott Tobias of The A.V. Club, who wrote, “It probably isn’t possible for a single movie to reverse all social progress made since the civil-rights era, but Norbit, the latest broadside from Eddie Murphy, does its best to turn back the clock.”
Another strong contender for ‘worst Eddie Murphy movie’ is A Thousand Words; a commercial flop that received harsh chastising on all fronts, including its poster design. “The poster art for A Thousand Words shows Eddie Murphy with duct tape over his mouth,” one critic wrote of the film, “which as a promotional idea ranks right up there with Fred Astaire in leg irons.”
Yet another poorly ranked film is The Adventures of Pluto Nash; a box office disaster that, despite inflating Murphy’s net worth by a staggering $20 million, recouped just $7.1 million of its $100 million budget.
