What Happens in Brooklyn Stays In Brooklyn

Back in 2007 when Eddie Murphy didn't win an Oscar for his performance in Dreamgirls, he stood up and walked out of the ceremonies in a huff and I said to myself, "What an asshole." Later, when he knocked up Scary Spice and refused to take responsibility, I swore him and his movies off completely, except for the odd (and usually bad) Shrek movie.

I lifted my Murphy ban recently because sometimes, you just want to see a train wreck, and boy howdy does his career have a lot of train wrecks.


I can see how someone thought this was a good idea in 1995. Wes Craven was doing well in horror and Eddie was pre-Pluto Nash and hadn't even thought of wearing a fat suit yet.

The idea is decent: Max (that would be Eddie's vampire name) is an old school vamp trying to track down the last of his kind in the new school city of Brooklyn so that his race can continue.

This is where the movie is flawed. It seems that no one knew much about Vampires when making this. For example, if a vampire wants his kind to live on, he doesn't need to track down some distant member of the blood line, a vampire can just BITE A MOTHERFUCKER!

Also, vampires can't make fire sprout from their hands (a bad idea, as fire is one of the few ways to kill a vamp), make dogs go flying through the air (wtf?), sparkle in the sunlight (not an issue in this movie, but still), or turn into a wolf. You know who can turn into a wolf? FUCKING WEREWOLVES, that is who.

The movie follows Max the entire time, which was a bad move because Max is the bad guy, the girl he is hunting is the one we are supposed to be endeared to. (Spoiler Alert) It makes the ending where Max is killed and turned into so much ash incredibly lame.

The redeeming factor in this movie is Kadeem Hardison, who plays the comedic Renfield to Eddie's Blackula. He runs around Brooklyn doing his masters bidding, the whole time slowly falling apart, literally -- for more than half the movie he has to use a mannequin hand because his fell off while he was rubbing down his boss's limo. He provided most of the real humor while Eddie said corny things like "Don't worry, do I look like I bite?"

3 stars.

Lastly, what is with that hair?