in life , eddie murphy and martin lawrence play two young men wrongfully convicted of murder and sentenced to life in prison .
after about an hour of watching this movie , you begin to realize how their characters feel .
fortunately , for audience members there’s a chance to escape the nearest exit .
this , undoubtedly , is eddie murphy’s worst movie and that’s an accomplishment .
remember the golden child , harlem nights ?
compared to life , they look like citizen kane .
life is long , predictable , foul-mouthed and only intermittently funny .
its 100-minute running time feels like 100 years .
robert ramsey and matthew stone’s script basically consist of murphy and lawrence referring to everyone around them as ” motherf . . . s ” or ” n . . . . .
s . ”
you lose count how many times both those obnoxious , offensive words are used .
and if that all it takes to write a script , than any illiterate jackass can sit at a word processor and compose a movie .
but , like life , it will probably stink .
to be honest , the screening audience surrounding me in the theater yucked it up .
but these were the same people who howled at all the flatulence and fat jokes as well .
life is as sophisticated as a belch .
it’s crude and stereotypical .
years ago , movies stereotypically portrayed blacks subservient , second-class people , good for being only maids and servants .
for the most part , the lot of blacks and other racial groups have improved .
but a new , more insidious stereotype is creeping into movies .
in many recent films , through actors such as murphy and chris tuckers , blacks are presented as fast-talking , conniving , scam artists or hip-hop , gun-crazy , sex-crazed youths .
both sets of caricatures are demeaning .
and the fault does not rest with the actors .
they have to eat , too .
it is with the people who write the scripts , the studios who green-light the projects and the audiences who accept these portrayals without protest .
life’s only redeeming virtue is the artistry of makeup legend rick baker who flawlessly ages murphy and lawrence into 90 year olds .
otherwise , life is an embarrassment , a blot on the resumes of those associated with it .
see it at your own risk .