A Thousand Words

A Thousand Words is a 2012 American comedy-drama film directed by Brian Robbins and starring Eddie Murphy. It was released in theaters on March 9, 2012, four years after it was filmed, to negative reviews from critics, receiving a 0% rating on review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes. It was a box office bomb, having grossed just $22 million worldwide on a $40 million budget.

Plot
Jack McCall is a literary agent who tries to find ways to make book deals and one day, he attempts to lie while trying to make a book deal with a man named Dr. Sinja, who is a self-help guru and gives Jack a five-page book as an agreement to his deal. One night later, a Bodhi tree appears in Jack's backyard, and if Jack speaks or even writes words of any kind, leaves will fall off the tree and if all of those leaves fell off, Jack will die along with the tree as well. So by that, Jack tests his limits on his communication skills by using gestures and only a few words.

Production
A Thousand Words was filmed in August 2008 in Los Angeles, California, and was supposed to be released in 2009, but was repeatedly delayed after being caught up in the separation of DreamWorks Pictures from Paramount Pictures and Viacom. During an interview for Fred: The Movie, director Brian Robbins stated that the film would be released in 2011. Reshoots were done on the film early in 2011.

The film was then scheduled for a January 2012 release, but after Murphy was announced as the host of the 2012 Oscar ceremony (he later stepped down), the film was given a date of March 23, 2012; this was later pushed to April 20, 2012, before being pushed up to its eventual release date of March 9, 2012.

Plans for a British release date of June 8, 2012, were cancelled due to unidentified difficulties, and the film was instead released direct-to-DVD in the UK on July 16, 2012.

Why It Sucks A Thousand Times

 * 1) For starters, the film's plot is a rip-off of Jim Carrey's 1997 film "Liar Liar" which steals many elements from it but instead of giving out honesty, it focuses on limitations of speaking and communication.
 * 2) The Bodhi Tree is an awful plot device that's used similarly to one of Eddie Murphy's other films "Imagine That" (though unrelated but shares similar elements too) which uses a blanket to enhance its plot but in this movie rather than giving charm, it's more of a death sign to it.
 * 3) Another addition that it shares to Imagine That, is that Jack McCall is another stereotypical and workaholic businessman with unlikeable traits similar to Evan Danielson except he did it worse.
 * 4) *These comparisons are likely to parallel with each other due to the fact that they're both Eddie Murphy and Paramount movies (in one way).
 * 5) Jack McCall is an unlikable character who neglects his wife's decisions, acts like a jerk to people, and becomes more intrigued by his job.
 * 6) Atrocious acting from Eddie Murphy and Cliff Curtis.
 * 7) The humor is just completely unfunny having several terrible jokes in it.
 * 8) In one of the scenes, Jack praises a cup of coffee he gets from Starbucks which was a blatant product placement for advertisement.
 * 9) Has several clichéd moments including Jack's backstory about his childhood, where he receives a second chance when he was supposed to die, and the movie's ending where he makes up for his mistakes as if nothing happened.
 * 10) Dr. Sinja is also an unlikeable character as he had no intention of wanting to do anything to help with Jack's life. Despite the advice he gave him, it sounded like Dr. Sinja was just trying to get Jack to shut up because he knew that he couldn't do anything (even if he tried) to help him out in his situations.
 * 11) The film almost killed off Eddie Murphy's career in theatrical films.

Redeeming Qualities

 * 1) Great music score from John Debney which is much better than the film.
 * 2) As mentioned in WIS #8, Jack did receive some character development and did apologize for his wrongdoings, and tried to improve on himself and his family.
 * 3) Having atrocious acting, Clark Duke, Jack McBrayer, and Kerry Washington do great in their acting roles respectfully.
 * 4) Aaron Wiseberger, the Starbucks employee, and Jack's wife are likable characters in this film.
 * 5) While it's clichéd, there are some good emotional scenes where Jack discussed his relationship about his father with his mother and wanted to seek forgiveness at his father's grave for not being in a stable relationship with him.

Reception
A Thousand Words was met with an extremely negative reception from critics while audiences gave it a mixed-to-negative reception for the film. The movie became a box office bomb due to the fact that the film failed to meet with its budget standards. On Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 0% based on 57 reviews, with an average rating of 3.12/10. The site's critical consensus reads, "Dated jokes (A Thousand Words was shot in 2008) and removing Eddie Murphy's voice – his greatest comedic asset – dooms this painful mess from the start." The site also gave the film their "Moldy Tomato" award for the worst-reviewed film of 2012. On Metacritic, the film has a score of 26 out of 100, based on 18 critics, indicating "generally unfavorable reviews". It currently holds a 5.9 out of 10 on IMDb. It holds a 2.3 out of 5 on Letterboxd. Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B−" on an A+ to F scale.

The movie currently has a Google users rating of "78%".

Frank Scheck of The Hollywood Reporter calls the film another example of "how the talented performer’s poor choice of material continually undercuts him". Although Scheck praises Murphy's efforts he concludes "The formulaic script by Steve Koren doesn't manage to exploit the absurd premise with any discernible wit or invention, and the star is left floundering." Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times gave the film 1.5 out of 4 and wrote: "The poster art for A Thousand Words shows Eddie Murphy with duct tape over his mouth, which as a promotional idea ranks right up there with Fred Astaire in leg irons." Ebert is also critical of the plot because it "never explains the rules". Justin Chang of Variety wrote: "Alas, even Murphy's largely wordless, physically adroit performance can't redeem this tortured exercise in high-concept spiritualist hokum."

Andrew Pulver of The Guardian commented, "Everyone, it seems, is united by A Thousand Words' awfulness."

Box office
A Thousand Words grossed $18,450,127 in North America, along with $3,594,150 in other countries, for a worldwide total of $22,044,277, against an estimated production budget of $40 million.

In the United States the film along with John Carter and Silent House was expected to gross $5 million on its opening weekend it made 1.92 on Friday it ended up debuting at sixth with 6.1 million on its opening weekend.

Accolades
A Thousand Words was nominated for three categories for Golden Raspberry Awards, but received none of them. The three categories are Worst Picture (lost to The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn – Part 2), Worst Actor (Eddie Murphy) (lost to Adam Sandler for That's My Boy), Worst Screenplay (Steve Koren) (lost to David Caspe for That's My Boy)

Videos
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