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You have to give Eddie Murphy credit. Despite a career that lapsed from early brilliance into lengthy bouts of easy-money mediocrity, the guy is a comic genius. He’s always been able to take a script, however inane, and transfuse it with a dose of his own energy, often to the point salvaging an otherwise lost cause. Sure, his judgement hit a new low back in 1995 with Vampire in Brooklyn, an atrocious attempt at horror/comedy which even some trademark multi-character riffing couldn’t rescue. But the next year he followed it up with a major comeback, the remake of Jerry Lewis’s cult classic The Nutty Professor. On strength of drop-dead hilarious portrayals of the rotund, multi-generational Klump family, the film grossed nearly $300 million worldwide.
But Murphy has an innate susceptibility to sequelitis (look for a follow-up to the so-so Dr. Doolittle in coming months, as well as a rumored fourth installment of Beverly Hills Cop), so that kind of money guaranteed his donning make-up genius Rick Baker’s latex and padding again. Much of the success first time out came from the wonder of trying to figure out whether or not it was really him playing six different variations of Klumpish age, size, and gender, though, so the question begs, is there enough novelty left to warrant another go-round?
Four years after sheepish college professor and genetics researcher Sherman Klump’s near-disastrous attempt at concocting the ultimate diet drug turned him into svelte, suave, but unstable Buddy Love, the churlish alter ego has begun trying to squirm back to the surface. Unfortunately, Buddy’s unscheduled rants couldn’t come at a worse time. It would be enough that Sherman is trying to summon courage to propose marriage to comely colleague Dr. Gains (Janet Jackson, whose sculpted-looking smile – among other things -- may have you wondering if maybe she didn’t get some of her parts from Baker too; that’s not so far-fetched if you remember he substantially altered the appearance of her brother in “Thriller” and “Captain Eo”). But he’s also on the verge of going public with a formula that reverses aging.
Via story devices borrowed from several of Kurt Russell’s old Disney movies (The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes; Now You See Him, Now You Don’t; etc.), both Sherman and Buddy get loose, although each suffers a peculiar imperfection in the process. It’s up to the portly prof to corral his bad self, save the university, and get the girl before his rapidly deteriorating genius winds up starring as Lenny in a collaborative BET/Food Network Of Mice and Men treatment.
Nutty Professor II is the latest of many recent films to suffer from Farrelly fever (you have to wonder if, when the AFI compiles a list of the most influential films of Hollywood’s second hundred years in 2098, There’s Something About Mary, having inspired a growing flock of body-fluid imitators, won’t be discussed with the same reverence once afforded to Citizen Kane). That shouldn’t be surprising, since it was co-written by American Pie creators Paul and Chris Weitz, but it’s still off-putting to be bombarded with so many gags based on both natural and unnatural functions of the intestines, small and large, human and animal (one of the hamsters from the first film is back, and its wrath is both unpleasant and projectile). But Murphy keeps most of it bearable, thanks entirely to scenes of the riotous Klump family gatherings, which have little to do with the plot yet constitute the heart of the movie. Each of his six characters – in addition to Sherman and Buddy, Sherman’s dad, mom, uncle, and take-no-prisoners grandma are back -- gets a completely different look, voice, and physicality. Unlike Martin Lawrence in Big Mamma’s House, Murphy never appears to be just a guy in a fat suit; he walks, talks, and smiles big -- or old, or mean, or randy, or matronly.
Yeah, he’s funny. Very funny. You have to wonder what he might be capable of were he again to take on the challenge of projects a little more dramatic in nature. It’s been 11 years since Harlem Nights, which Murphy wrote, directed, and starred in, was such a critical and box-office disappointment. Surely that’s enough time for the sting to have worn off, and for inspiration to again try something with more substance to have returned. C+
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