It shouldn't be any surprise that Eddie Murphy's comedy A Thousand Words, which finally opened today after numerous delays, is getting no love from the critics.
We have chronicled the very painful and ugly journey of the film, which was originally shot in 2008, with a reported budget in some media sources of $70 million. But after some disastrous initial test previews it was pulled from its originally planned 2009 release and went through some extensive reshoots and re-editing in a desperate effort to salvage the film.
Then the film, during the past two years, went though so many announced release dates and sudden cancellations that it was dizzying.
Finally Dreamworks has dumped the film in theaters today hoping that it will be quickly forgotten, holding media screenings on Weds night at the last minute, which is almost always a bad sign. And it was definitely true in this case.
Roger Ebert in the Chicago Sun-Times gave the film just one star and a half and called it an "epic fail." In his review he describes the plot and from what he says there are so many story inconsistencies, plot holes, and muddled and unexplained character motivations in the fiilm that it is clear evidence of the drastic re-editing and re-tooling the film went through.
The New York Times review by Andy Webster was hardly any better, saying that the film was "unsurprising and uninspiring".
The one bright spot however is sure to be whatever so-called film critic Shawn ("I've never seen a film I didn't like which movie ads can quote me from") Edwards, who will no doubt give it a rave once again, proving what Erik Childress of E-Filmcritic.com and his Criticwatch columns says – that when it come to film critics who are really nothing but "quote whores," Edwards is the King of Whores.