It’s hard to overstate just how meteoric Eddie Murphy’s rise to prominence was in the 1980s, with the stand-up comic and Saturday Night Live veteran becoming one of the biggest movie stars of the decade within the space of just a few years.
48 Hrs., Trading Places, Beverly Hills Cop and Coming to America had all been released and found major success by the time he was 27, which is mind-blowing when you think about it. Unfortunately, the only way from there was down, with Murphy reaching a nadir in the 2000s when everything he touched that wasn’t named Shrek ended up suffering from critical or commercial disaster, and often both.
After landing an Academy Award nomination for Dreamgirls, Murphy followed it up with the dire Norbit, Meet Dave, Imagine That and A Thousand Words, the latter of which was his final onscreen appearance for four years. When he did return, Mr. Church was greeted rather tepidly.
The drama did boast one of the leading man’s best performances in a long time, but a 24% Rotten Tomatoes score was far from encouraging. Murphy would vanish for another three years until Dolemite Is My Name kickstarted his recent resurgence, but it’s Mr. Church that’s been floating up the Netflix most-watched all week, as per FlixPatrol.
