The Nutty Professor ** (1996, Eddie Murphy, Jada Pinkett Smith, James Coburn) – Classic Movie Review 1776

Co-writer/director Tom Shadyac’s 1996 reboot of the 1963 hit focuses on Eddie Murphy’s tour-de-force acting in several roles that brought him his long-awaited comeback after a series of flops.

This remake of the old Jerry Lewis comedy has a lot of big laughs, but it often spoils itself by being very crude, smug and simple-minded. Thanks to some brilliant cinema makeup effects trickery, Murphy plays the grossly overweight (but good-hearted) chemistry professor Sherman Klump, who invents a fat gene formula and is transformed into the tall, slim, sexy (but obnoxious and lecherous) Buddy Love – yes, that’s Eddie too!

Murphy’s a clever, funny man, and this movie showcases that well, but the appallingly unsubtle script desperately needs honing and refining. Jada Pinkett Smith is wasted in a poorly developed role as Murphy’s  love interest, teacher Carla.

There’s lots of swearing, crude humour and sexual references : the TV version is edited for family viewing. Sequel: Nutty Professor II: The Klumps (2000). It took four hours of prosthetic makeup to turn the svelte Murphy into the 28-stone Sherman Klump. Rick Baker and David LeRoy Anderson won an Oscar and a Bafta award for Best Makeup.

© Derek Winnert Classic Movie Review 1776

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