Eddie Murphy’s comedic genius eclipsed as of late
It’s hard to get excited about the news that Eddie Murphy will host the 2012 Academy Awards, because – how do I put this as respectfully as possible? – his last three live-action movies have been embarrassingly schlocky stinkers.
Maybe Oscar producer Brett Ratner thinks he has an ace up his sleeve. Or maybe he just likes hiring his pals; Murphy is, after all, the star of Ratner’s upcoming thriller, “Tower Heist.”
It’s hard to think of a comedian with a career that is more in eclipse than Murphy. After a meteoric rise to stardom – first on “Saturday Night Live,” then in a string of hit films including “48 Hrs.,” “Coming to America,” “Beverly Hills Cop” and “The Nutty Professor” – Murphy has aimed low, and even then often missed, be it with lightweight hits such as “Daddy Day Care” or with disasters such as “The Adventures of Pluto Nash.”
The last time Murphy showed any of his old live-wire ambition was in 2006 with “Dreamgirls,” where he turned in a dazzling performance and earned himself a supporting actor Oscar nomination.
Of course, Murphy, who is infamous in Hollywood for his half-hearted work ethic and sense of entitlement, managed to embarrass himself when he left the Oscar ceremony in a huff immediately after losing to Alan Arkin (“Little Miss Sunshine”).
In the old days, that kind of self-centered head trip would land you in Oscar jail. But the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences is clearly desperate to put on a glitzy show next Feb. 26 in the hopes of wooing viewers that have been tuning out the Oscars with depressing frequency.
In the official academy announcement Tuesday, Ratner called Murphy a “comedic genius,” saying he was “one of the greatest and most influential live performers ever.”
There’s only one problem: Today’s comic geniuses are Ben Stiller, Zach Galifianakis and Seth Rogen, not Murphy.
Ratner clearly has an old-school reverence for Murphy, whom he almost joined forces with several years back on a reboot of the “Beverly Hills Cop” franchise.
But the Murphy he really loves – the R-rated bad boy from “Eddie Murphy Raw” – isn’t the guy we’d ever get to see at the Oscars, a show so steeped in PG-style schmaltz and decorum that the last African American host, Chris Rock, was never asked back after he brought a little too much irreverence to the 2005 proceedings.
Of course, it would be great to see Murphy show up at the Oscars, lean and hungry and eager to blow us away. Maybe he’ll be like a modern-day version of Elvis Presley, who staged a startling comeback in a legendary 1968 NBC TV special after languishing for years in Hollywood, making the same kind of dreadful movies Murphy has made recently.
Stranger things have happened. But the odds are slim. It’s hard to know just what you’ve got until it’s gone, and with comedians like Murphy, once the killer instinct is gone, it ain’t coming back.