| THE NUTTY PROFESSOR II: THE KLUMPS |
2000 - USA
Director: Peter Segal - Reviewed by Linda 
The extremely early appearance of Janet-Miss-Jackson-If-You're-Nasty's breasts should have warned me. A dream sequence opens the film: Obese Nutty Professor Sherman Klump is imagining that he is wedding his secret love, Prof. Janet, and his concentration is broken at the altar as he is distracted by her extremely buxom cleavage. Even the audience audibly "Ooooo!"ed in appreciation of Janet's physical gifts. Then all hell breaks loose in the dream as Klump gets, um, very visibly excited by what he sees... Well! OK, maybe I shouldn't be the one to review this one, since I didn't see the original Eddie Murphy version of The Nutty Professor... but from word-of-mouth, I had heard that the first film was a crowd-pleasing comedy hit. So I was expecting a fun family film. Well, let's just say, there are plenty of your currently crowd-pleasing flatulence jokes in the sequel, but there are an awful lot of sex jokes and swear words as well. I had to check, after squirming through this film, to find out that it was rated PG-13... and I personally think that it maybe should have been considered for an R rating. I mean, farting jokes are one thing, but try explaining to your kids (who will want to see this) a scene involving a giant hamster, um, fornicating with the Dean of the college during a live TV broadcast. <uncomfortably tugging at collar and clearing throat> But a lot of this film IS very funny. Eddie Murphy plays just about every role. He is the lead character, big Professor Klump, who has discovered a Fountain of Youth-type concoction, and he plays every member of Klump's large family. Sans make-up, he is also Prof. Klump's alter-ego, the obnoxious, sexified Buddy Love, who manifests himself in a separate body (not worth explaining) to wreak havoc on poor Klump's personal and professional life. Eddie Murphy, amazingly enough, even plays Janet Jackson quite convincingly. I couldn't even tell! Oh. The pace of the film is quite uneven... some jokes are really laugh-out-loud funny, and others just made me squirm and want to run from the theater. Surprisingly, the most delightful parts of the film were the scenes that just showed the Klump family bantering together and harassing each other. Technical wizardry and excellent make-up allow Murphy to be five or six different people on screen at once. And he is actually a good enough actor that you don't even notice... you see them all as distinct characters, with the magic slipping only once or twice. Mama and Papa Klump were particularly sweet, even though the majority of their plot involved him being sexually impotent <insert many more sex jokes here>. If you liked Eddie Murphy's early stand-up comedy from the 80s, you'd probably enjoy this film. He really gets to let loose, especially with astonishingly raunchy character of Grandma Klump. If you like to look at Janet Jackson's cute apple cheekbones (and other gifts), you may like it (since she doesn't really serve any other purpose than looking adorable, in a genetic-scientist way). But otherwise, wait for a rainy-day video rental. |
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