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The Movie: "Nutty Professor 2" is one of those rare movies that I felt was actually not only slightly better, but noticably better than the original. But it still doesn't quite work for the entire running time. Instead of having Sherman Klump(Murphy) as a character who is just a target for humiliation and embarassment, "2" gives the character a chance to be a real, feeling person - but the film of course, still throws a few comments his way. The film seems as if the creators decided that the scenes with The Klumps around the table in the first film deserved to be expanded into a feature-length project - and they were right to think so. The film revolves around Sherman and new sweetheart(played by Janet Jackson) coming up with a new fountain of youth formula. But Sherman's alter-ego Buddy Love is not gone for good - Sherman separates him from himself midway through the film, and when he appears once again, he wants the profits from Sherman's formula. What's wrong with the film is that it's a thin story tied together with endless fart and sex jokes. Fart jokes are funny on occasion for some empty laughs, but over and over again for a couple hours and well, it starts to stink. There's also a couple of subplots for the rest of the Klump family, but the only character there that is funny is the grandfather, because he seems the least cartoonish. All of this is put together by quite a few writers, which suprisingly include the "American Pie" writer/director duo of Chris and Paul Weitz. Murphy isn't bad, and again, shows his ability to practically have an "Eddie Murphy Show" as he takes on several characters in the span of one film. Janet Jackson turns in a respectable, but not remarkable performance as Sherman's girlfriend. Larry Miller returns as the dean, and has one scene with a giant hamster that I don't even want to get into. The film is a little shaky, but generally works up until about 3/4ths of the way through, when it pretty much runs out of places to go with the material. I liked the way that Sherman was more regarded as a real person here, not just the target of jokes(well, for the most part). The film seems to be trying to talk about accepting people, but in the midst of all of the fart jokes any message pretty much gets lost. Even more impressive is that the film was able to earn a PG-13. R is a more realistic rating, and parents should think twice before taking younger children to the film. As for a final thought, it's an improvement over the first film, but it's still more focused on gross-out humor than going for a real story. |