THE NUTTY PROFESSOR
A film review by Chad Polenz
Copyright 1997 Chad Polenz
**1/2 (out of 4 = OK) 1996, PG-13, 95 minutes [1 hour, 35 minutes] [comedy] starring: Eddie Murphy (Prof. Sherman Klump, Buddy Love, the entire Klump family), Jada Pinkett (Clara Purty), Larry Miller (Dean Richmond), written by David Sheffield, Barry W. Blaustein, Tom Shadyac, Steve Odekerk, produced by Brian Grazer, Russell Simmons, directed by Tom Shadyac.
If "The Nutty Professor" is Eddie Murphy's attempt at a "comeback" it's not a very good one. The film starts off with cartoonish innocence to it, but eventually it becomes a typical, raunchy Murphy flick just slightly toned down to appeal to a wider audience.
The story starts off in a lighthearted manner as we meet Sherman Klump (Murphy), 400-pound chemistry professor whose obesity keeps getting him in trouble. Klump is the typical, lonely-but-lovable fat man who can't help but feel sorry for himself. He tries to exercise and diet, but it just doesn't work.
The jokes and the atmosphere revolving around such an easy target seem like just that: easy jokes and gags that can be funny, be could be even funnier had they some originality to them. The first such example of this is a somewhat funny scene involving thousands of hamsters running all over the college grounds (that escaped due to Klump's massive bulk bumping into everything). However, this immediate cartoony humor is symbolic of how the film works as a whole.
And what's a comedy without a beautiful woman? Jada Pinkett co-stars as Clara Purty, a new chemistry teacher who somehow finds herself drawn to Klump, and even agrees to go out with him. Let's see... we have a beautiful woman with a fat man, and they go to a comedy club... the story and the jokes essentially write themselves from here.
Klump can't take it anymore and concocts a formula that causes him to drop 250 pounds in a few seconds. But when his size changes, so does his personality, that of the extremely vain, but smooth Buddy Love.
Unfortunately, Love's charm wears out quickly and the film starts to return to Murphy's vulgar roots. We get sit-com-esque scenes of Love and Purty arguing with each other even as he seduces her. Then zany scenes as Love proceeds to become a wiseass who cracks on every person he sees, and even gets into a fist fight (that's not funny!). I found myself somewhat laughing at these parts, but I felt like I've seen it all before. The scenes with Klump had an innocent charm I hadn't experienced in a while, and just as it started to grow on me the entire film changed and became just another screwball comedy.
At times the film can be quite gross and offensive to say the least. In fact, isn't its entire premise a little too politically incorrect for the times? Fat jokes are funny in passing, so having an entire film revolve around them is not. Consider the scenes in which Murphy plays every member of the extremely obese Klump family. All we get is a family arguing with each other and having farting contests. I laughed at the time, but in retrospect this type of comedy is pandering the lowest common denominator and who likes to be pandered to?
Most of the plot of the film involves Klump's struggle to control his personalities and not get fired and Purty in the process. The battle between the personalities is what creates for most of the jokes, but the formula repeats itself often. It all depends on how much of it you can take.
"The Nutty Professor" is pretty funny at times, but is just too contrived to be taken seriously. The comedy relies a little too much on special effects and makeup instead of zany situations and dialogue.
[Note: I highly question the PG-13 rating. There is little sex or violence in this film but there is a great deal of profanity. Not vulgar profanity, but just disgusting, lowbrow dialogue which proves this is really an R-rated Murphy flick in disguise.]
please visit Chad'z Movie page @ http://members.aol.com/ChadPolenz
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