The Nutty Professor

Sir Eddie Murphy does not make a return, if you ask him since he dwells to be in the spotlight forever. Surely, it comes as a surprise to Murphy that Professor becomes one of his worst-grossing movies followed by a trio of flops (The Distinguished Gentleman, Vampire in Brooklyn, and Beverly Hills Cop III)that were deemed critical and commercially unsound or even flop. Murphy has Murphy, on the one hand, appealing to a multifaceted audience, offering a blend of high-intensive amusement Terra Murphy and Ace Ventura’s veterans Tom Shadyac and Steve Oederkerk’s brand of comedy. But as for the audience who, like those who went to see Dumb and Dumber in the hope of laughing at the gags about the impotence of farting, will be entertained with this film as well, because it is one of those who will take it lightly. Naturally, humor of a higher order will not be found. The Nutty Professor, as the title suggests, has a base of concept that revolves around crazy screaming and irony. Any idiot with an IQ over ten will understand every joke and will more or less agree with the ideals behind Key Harry’s point.

Murphy is absolutely hilarious, giving his most unhinged, creative turn in years, and playing at least seven completely different personas. But too often, the script is not in his favor. I will confess that I found myself chuckling a few times, but I also noticed so many missed chances. The movie absurd professor was supposed to be more amusing than it turned out to be but the producers have focused too much on body humor and as such have decreased what Murphy can do.

This version of The Nutty Professor is a very loose adaptation of the Jerry Lewis comedy of the same name from 1963 where a geek trying to win a woman creates a drug that transforms him into a womanizer. That one too was a variant of the story of Robert Louis Stevenson’s The Strange Case of Dr., Jekyll and Mr, Hyde. It is surprising that in the past few months, three versions of this story were released simultaneously. While The Nutty Professor fails to get anywhere near the chilling, atmospheric Mary Reilly by Stephen Frears, it is a lot better than Dr. Jekyll and Ms. Hyde which came out in 1995. It is interesting to note that this story is generally most known for its horror side but none of these has been made in the genre of horror- two comedies and a drama.

In the 90s film called ‘The Nutty Professor’, Eddie Murphy takes on the role of Sherman Klump, a Wellman College science instructor who defies the stereotype of an intelligent person by flaunting a 400-pound body. The movie then introduces the breathtaking, Carla Purty played by Jada Pinkett, who enters while Klump is in class and says that she deeply admires him. The cute love story despite being cliche, is endearing. However, the gifted professor being quite infatuated with her decided to start cutting weight. Klump begins unleashing himself in physical activity daily only to realize that he has a quicker method of transforming his weight. He recalls a serum that was used for changing a hamster gene structure and got the result he needed, so he decided to test it out on himself as well. It worked like a charm! After his first taste of the light blue contents in the vial, Klump magically became Buddy Love, a charming slim even more muscular version of himself. The only downside to him was that he had a horrible personality combined with being psychotic.

The dinner-time comedy, in the moments that are not directed around Sherman’s family passing gas, burping, or the idea of a sneeze being around the table, is childish, to say the least. One of the examples, Sherman while having a nightmare considers himself to be King Kong, reaching the window of the room on one of the floors of the skyscraper, but his objective is not the lady but the roast turkey. Along with this, a very funny sequence of the film is the parody of ‘From Here to Eternity’ and of the ‘battle’ directed at the end which is between Sherman, and Buddy which is pretty well choreographed.

In The Nutty Professor, there exists a strong message related to self-respect as well as accepting people as they are (strangely, so does Disney’s ‘The Hunchback of Notre Dame’). We end up caring for Sherman quite a bit because of Murphy’s out-of-the-box performance therefore making it easier for us to understand and sympathize with his struggle. Sadly though, most of the shocking as to why most of the touching sides of the story were glossed over is because some material was too worrying for a story that was built as a comedy situation. Even worse is the presence of substantiated suspicion in The Nutty Professor which shows a lot of fat jokes leading to contradicting motives.

The effects are exceptional and remind me of Jim Carrey’s movie The Mask. Assistant by Rick Baker, Murphy is impressive as a massive Sherman, stars in the role of a senile grandmother, transforms himself into a look like Richard Simmons, and Norris is turned into trim and slim Buddy Love. It’s a battle for the comic, and that makes The Nutty Professor nearly worthwhile. Sadly, this film is not quite romance-oriented so dare not expect it to be getting too many easy laughs or heartbreaks. By the end though, it is unclear if Sherman is the source of laughter or romance.

Watch “The Nutty Professor” For Free on Gomovies.