'A Thousand Words' leaves reviewer speechless.

By SYMONE BROWN
SNN Staff Writer

Funnyman Eddie Murphy hits the big screen with an eccentric comedy, A Thousand Words. But I could sum up this movie with only three words: waste of time.

Murphy plays Jack McCall, a successful, slick-talking, chatterbox agent for a book publishing company. His attempt to sign the next hot book commodity by Dr. Sinja (Cliff Curtis), a yoga master and self-help guru who pens an inspirational book on “finding the inner you,” went terribly wrong. Murphy ends up making the deal but he doesn’t get what he bargained for.

A tree mysteriously appears in his backyard after he makes the deal. A leaf falls off the tree with every word he speaks. When all the leaves fall off the tree, he dies. Throughout the movie he finds clever ways to express himself, like using sign language to order at Starbucks. Ultimately, he must find the real him and learn to use his words wisely in order to reverse the tree’s curse.

The story line is the only unique thing in the entire movie. The film makers went for cliché dialogue, cheap laughs and predictable plot twists. They tried entirely too hard to be inspiring and comical. It’s hard to see the deeper meaning through the mumbo-jumbo. With the right script and Murphy’s talent, this movie could have been a hit; instead it was forgettable. On the bright side, Murphy’s assistant Aaron Wiseberger (Clark Duke) kept you laughing through it all.

A Thousand Words left me speechless... and not in a good way.