Nutty Professor II: The Klumps (2000) / Comedy-Fantasy

MPAA Rated: PG-13 for crude humor, sex-related material, and language
Running Time: 106 min.

Cast: Eddie Murphy, Janet Jackson, Larry Miller, John Ales, Richard Gant, Chris Elliott (cameo), Wanda Sykes (cameo)
Director: Peter Segal
Screenplay: Barry W. Blaustein, David Sheffield, Paul Weitz, Chris Weitz
Review published August 8, 2000

Eddie Murphy (Bowfinger, Life) is back as nearly the entire cast of Nutty Professor II: The Klumps, once again reminding us why he was the superstar that he was back in the 1980s. In this outing, Sherman (Murphy) is on the verge of asking his lovely colleague Denise (Janet Jackson, Poetic Justice) to marry him. Although he is a very large man, she loves him for his mind but complications arise when Buddy Love (Murphy), the "id" that lives within Sherman, is removed, and later breaks out joining his DNA with a local mutt. The problem is that without Buddy, Sherman is losing his intellect at a fast rate and if not found soon, Sherman will become a babbling idiot.

Nutty Professor 2 does deliver on some laughs here and there, enough to make it somewhat watchable, but a genuine disinterest by the filmmakers on the plot, as well as a very high degree of lowbrow humor permeate the entire production. Just like The Nutty Professor, Murphy carries the film on his shoulders, and through his sheer madcap energy, he doesn't give a lot of time to reflect that the film is, at its core, quite bad.

If you liked the first entry, you may have some fun with this raunchier chapter, but those who didn't care for the first one should stay clear, since the flaws of the first are multiplied in this one.  Some funny parts, some bad parts, and most of the rest of the time, it's just mediocre dreck.

Qwipster's rating:

©2000 Vince Leo