# Nutty Professor II: The Klumps (2000)

### reviewed by
John Beachem

    NUTTY PROFESSOR II: THE KLUMPS

    Review by John Beachem

    * * *

Directed by: Peter Segal Written by: Steve Oedekerk, Barry W. Blaustein, David Sheffield, Paul Weitz, Chris Weitz

That mountainous family from "The Nutty Professor" has returned. This time the brilliant (though still larger than life) Sherman Klump (Eddie Murphy) has found the secret to a youth formula, which his boss, Dean Richmond (Larry Miller) is selling to a pharmaceutical company for 150 million dollars. However, before Sherman can become rich and famous he faces three problems: one, he is madly in love with his partner on the project, Denice Gains (Janet Jackson); yet he can't ask her to marry him because of his second problem, Buddy Love (Eddie Murphy), is still lurking inside Sherman, making him say and do things he doesn't mean; and three, the youth formula's effects are only temporary. So Sherman and his chief assistant, Jason (John Ales), think up a way to eliminate Sherman's first two problems by extracting Buddy's remaining DNA. This causes two unfortunate side affects: Buddy Love is released into the world again after a freak accident in the lab; and Sherman's brain is damaged, causing him to grow dumber by the minute.

Now you're probably wondering how my plot summary managed to have no mention of Sherman Klump's family. After all, the previews made the film out to be nothing but a long series of hilarious dinner table scenes ala the first "Nutty Professor" film. We do get one scene more than a little similar to the original film's now famous dinner table scene, but while it may be fairly amusing this time around, we've seen it all before. The fact that most of the humor in "Nutty Professor II" has been recycled can be viewed as both a strength and a weakness. You're obviously wondering how recycled humor can possibly be a strength, and the answer is quite simple. The old humor feels familiar and comfortable. It's also amusing because the humor from the original film is sharp and clever (take a very amusing little homage to "Cape Fear" for example). A lot of the new humor added is nothing but typical year 2000 gross-out humor, which I'm personally getting more than a little tired of (the giant hamster scene is a great example of this).

>From the opening credits, where Eddie Murphy's name is the only one advertised before the film's title appears, you know exactly who this movie belongs to. Janet Jackson ("Poetic Justice"), John Ales ("Spy Hard"), and particularly Larry Miller ("The Big Tease") are present only to further Murphy's jokes. So how does Murphy fare? Well, quite frankly, it depends on the character he's playing at the time. As Sherman Klump - that big, kindly blimp, Murphy is just as likeable as he was in the first film. As Buddy Love, he doesn't quite pull off the act this time around. In the first film Buddy Love was often uproariously funny; in the sequal he just seems to get in the way. He doesn't have enough screen time to leave any sort of impression, and when he is on screen he spends most of his time sniffing the air and going to the bathroom on newspaper (more on that later). His acting like a canine is amusing the first couple of times, but when he starts doing it for the sixth or seventh time, the routine has worn out its welcome.

As the Klump family, Murphy's comic abilities depend entirely on which family member he's playing. Sherman is still the quaint, kindly man he was in the first film, but he's treated like garbage this time around, and it isn't funny watching him be embarrassed since he's so likeable. Watching Sherman make an idiot of himself in front of Denice's parents made me feel bad rather than making me laugh. Grandma Klump, on the other hand, is uproariously funny. Any scene with her is so hilariously vulgar I sometimes couldn't breath I was laughing so hard; yet her screen time is so limited these laughing spells were few and far between. Sherman's parents, Mama and Papa Klump, don't fare quite so well. There's a moronic little subplot involving Papa's inability to, um, pleasure his wife in bed, but it's never particularly amusing. Last, we have Sherman's brother, Ernie. Ernie was barely seen in the first film and continues this trend in the sequel. This is a shame because I could always tell a great comic character was just aching to break free (his few lines in the dinner scene are some of the best).

Contrary to what I had feared, the gross-out humor in "Nutty Professor II" is really quite restrained (of course, I could be saying that just because I now compare everything to "Scary Movie" in terms of gross-out humor). While the film is loaded with flatulence jokes (come on, what did you expect?), it also contains a fair amount of intelligent jokes. However, Buddy Love is not involved in any of these intelligent jokes. I said I'd try to explain why he was acting like a dog, so here goes. When Sherman extracts Buddy's DNA, the vile containing it is knocked off onto an electrical outlet. While lying on the ground a dog walks into the room and scratches a hair off onto the pile of goop, which gives Buddy's DNA a host to latch on to and recreate him. Since he was created using a combination of Sherman's DNA and a dog's, he behaves like a dog while looking like a human. I didn't say it made sense, I just said I'd try to explain it. "Nutty Professor II" runs far too long at 110 minutes, and it should have been no longer than 90. I'd recommend it to people who adore fart jokes and give the film a rather generous three out of five stars.

Comments? Send to: johnbeachem@dependentfilms.net

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* * * * * - One of the best movies of the year. * * * * - Great flick, try and catch this one. * * * - Okay movie, hits and misses. * * - Pretty bad, see it at your own risk. * - See this one only if you enjoy pain.

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