Subject: REVIEW: THE NUTTY PROFESSOR (1996)

From: [email-masked] (Ram Samudrala)
Date: 13 Jul 1996 13:54:17 GMT

THE NUTTY PROFESSOR
                       A film review by Ram Samudrala
                        Copyright 1996 Ram Samudrala

/The Nutty Professor/ is being touted as the comeback movie for Eddie
Murphy.  It is a story we have seen before, one where a brilliant
genius-type with some physical flaw is made fun of by society.  In
this movie, Professor Sherman Klump (Eddie Murphy) is overweight.
Coincidentally, his scientific research revolves around changing DNA
to make someone, or something, thinner (the scientific details in the
movie are best taken with rocks of salt).  He achieves his goal just
as he meets the woman of his dreams, Carla Purty (Jada Pinkett), the
highly attractive grad student teaching chemistry across the hall.
Because of his own insecurities about his weight, he takes his newly
perfected formula to reduce weight and transforms himself into a sleek
Buddy Love.  The remainder of the movie is a battle between the sweet
hearted Sherman and the arrogant and obnoxious Buddy in a tug-of-war
as to who gets to stay around and get the girl.

The acting in this movie is mixed.  Murphy himself is amazing in his
numerous roles as Buddy, Sherman, and most of Sherman's family.  This
is an excellent venue for Murphy's incredible comic abilities and
character work.  The other supporting cast members are adequate but
none of them stand out.  The movie, however, is full of toilet humour
and jokes fit for the braindead.  Not that there's anything wrong
with that in and of itself.  As a Jim Carrey fan, I can take toilet
humor, but this movie had some scenes, like the ones at the dinner
table, where it was simply banal and insipid.

This movie will be a winner at the box office, since the majority of
the people in the movie were laughing continually, from one toilet
joke to the next.  Hidden amidst the farts and the burps is a message
about the way in which we treat people who are overweight and the
struggle these people face in their daily lives.  This comes across
best in the scene with the comic in which Sherman is picked on because
of his weight.   In a movie where cheap humour is the major attraction,
the contrast between the entire Scream club laughing at Sherman's
expense is highly empathic.  

If you are an Eddie Murphy fan this is definitely worth seeing on the
big screen.  Otherwise, I would wait for the video.

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