![]() In Dolemite Is My Name, Murphy played the influential comedian and filmmaker Rudy Ray Moore, spotlighting his unlikely ascent and the production of his blaxploitation classic, Dolemite. In addition to getting back to what previously worked for him, the film also saw him getting back to what was important to him. “The whole comeback and stuff, you can’t really say that.” However, it’s undeniable that Murphy was less active during the 2010s and Dolemite Is My Name should be viewed as part of a recalibration. And my movies have made so much money,” he told IndieWire in 2019. They’re giving me Razzies.’” Furthermore, Murphy was adamant throughout the press run for Dolemite Is My Name that he wasn’t making a “comeback.” “I’ve been making movies for almost 40 years. “I was making shitty movies,” he told Marc Maron during a 2021 appearance on the fellow comedian’s WTF With Marc Maron podcast. To his credit, Murphy knows he’s done several awful films over the past 20-plus years. He’s entered the victory lap portion of his career and appears to have found what was largely absent for the last half of it: balance. ![]() ![]() It’s a great role for this iteration of Murphy, who turns 62 this spring. He’ll also appear in the Kenya Barris comedy You People (available this week on Netflix), playing a man wondering, with intense disgust, why his daughter (Lauren London) wants to marry a white dude (Jonah Hill)-especially this particular white dude. Since then, Murphy’s circled back on some of his most revered work, delivering Coming 2 America in 2021 and with Beverly Hills Cop: Axel Foley reportedly set to come out later this year. Recognition from Hollywood’s halls of prestige don’t validate Murphy’s career in the slightest, but a Golden Globe nomination for his work in Dolemite Is My Name and an Emmy for his appearance on Saturday Night Live-and, above all, good work-weren’t bad ways to start the latest era of Eddie Murphy. Not long after Dolemite Is My Name hit Netflix in 2019, Murphy hosted Saturday Night Live for the first time since he left to be a full-time movie star. But his return to form, in terms of overall quality, came at the very end of the previous decade via Dolemite Is My Name, which was the beginning of the current phase of Murphy’s career. Murphy’s performances weren’t the issue during this period of volatility as much as the projects he chose. And during the 2010s, Murphy’s output slowed substantially as he appeared in the successful-but-nonessential Tower Heist, the long-delayed A Thousand Words (which never should have seen the light of day), and the forgettable Mr. ![]() Although Murphy was an anchor of the Shrek franchise and won a Golden Globe for his performance in the studio adaptation of Dreamgirls, he also chose to do massive failures such as The Adventures of Pluto Nash and Meet Dave when he could’ve done anything else. The aughts, however, were decidedly hit-and-miss. He even played the Pharaoh in Michael Jackson’s John Singleton–directed “short film” for “Remember the Time.” And by the end of the decade, Murphy was the face of the Dr. Although he still did comedies like The Nutty Professor and Bowfinger (which featured him in all of his silly, multi-character glory) during the 1990s, a film like Boomerang offered a glimpse of the maturity and polish that Murphy was capable of, all while flexing the power he commanded during the early ’90s. (In between, he recorded a hit single written and produced by Rick James as a heat check.) Moreover, that he reached Hollywood’s apex during that era as a late-20s, Black comedic actor who was notoriously uncompromising is a feat all by itself. He pulled off the most garish leather outfits in the brilliant stand-up special Eddie Murphy: Delirious and the Robert Townsend–directed, feature-length stand-up film Eddie Murphy: Raw. After emerging as the biggest star of Saturday Night Live’s second phase, Murphy became one of the biggest stars of the 1980s on the strength of 48 Hrs., Trading Places, Beverly Hills Cop and Beverly Hills Cop ll, and Coming to America. ![]()
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