Movie: The Nutty Professor II: The Klumps once again stars Eddie Murphy in the role of Sherman Klump, the genius professor at a small college. Invoking the same kind of dynamic reminiscent of the Walt Disney Mayfield College comedies (starring a young Kurt Russell as Dexter Riley, who went from becoming a genius in The Computer That Wore Tennis Shoes, to invisible in Now You See Him, Now You Don't, to incredibly strong in The Strongest Man in the World, all thanks to modern science), Sherman has sworn off trying to use his brilliant mind to lose weight and is focusing on a youth formula. His initial experiments prove promising and the college stands to win a deal with a corporate sponsor for $150 million dollars. He pines for a fellow professor played by Janet Jackson (sans wardrobe malfunction) named Denise Gaines that loves him for his mind but he is afraid to pop her the question thanks to his instable genetic makeup that shows him continuing to wrestle with his Buddy Love persona that was apparently not vanquished completely, even if he cannot take human form. Needless to say, an accident in the laboratory one night sets in motion a chain of events that frees Buddy from Sherman physically to breathe life into the two personalities existing apart from one another, largely due to Sherman trying to destroy Buddy via science (after ignoring his own promise from the original movie). The plot evolves from there into the boilerplate one upsmanship where an increasingly dumb Sherman has to stop Buddy before his mind turns to mush while saving the lucrative deal with the company and getting Denise back.

This time, director Peter Segal took the reins over from Tom Shadyac (Liar Liar and Bruce Almighty) and the results were mixed. The plotted points about Sherman fighting Buddy were the glue that (sort of) held the rest of the movie together but the main gimmick this time was the family, almost all of them played by Eddie Murphy using the prosthetics to give him different looks. The Klump family was present in the previous flick but given a lot more attention this time (ala his method acting in Coming To America), stealing the show from the boring Sherman and obnoxious Buddy personas. Therein lies the problem with the movie; it succeeds better as a group of barely connected clips of the family members he plays, this time heavy on his libidinous grandmother as she tries to score with strippers and a man old enough that it is joked about his involvement in the Underground Railroad.

As a comedy, most of us are going to either like it or not, depending on what we find funny. As stated above, most of the comedic bits were unrelated to the plot and served more as distractions as to how ill thought out the movie really was. Jackson could have phoned in her role and Dean Richmond (well played by Larry "Hamster Bitch" Miller) wasn't given enough meat to shine with. Whoever was in charge of the production was clearly catering to Eddie's huge ego as the man played both sides to various jokes, most of them falling flat, many thanks to their emphasis on flatulence. The parody combining Star Wars, 2001: A Space Odyssey, and Armageddon was cute until the punch line but all too often the potty humor simply got repetitive and childish. The reliance of sexual innuendos and situations also made it clear that Eddie should have been given an R rated vehicle to really let loose rather than be hamstrung by the limitations allowed for a PG-13 script. Given the roles he played between the original movie and this sequel, it's not like he was in a good bargaining position to turn down a better script.

Another problem with relying strictly on a single person, albeit one assuming seven roles, is that his brand of humor might not appeal to any but the fan or the lowest common denominator. Personally, I've long appreciated Murphy when he's in the right kind of movie with the right kind of script and a decent director but when this one seemed pushed into a continual stream of vulgarities based on sex, picking on fat people, and race with a PG-13 mentality, it was like someone let the air out of his tires. For every amusing joke were a half dozen losers unworthy of Eddie's heyday and the movie got increasingly old as it went on. The CGI sequence at the end was hilarious for a few minutes but also showed the desperation all too soon, the limited plot elements taking over but not saving the day. Like most Saturday Night Live alumni, Eddie seems to have joined the ranks of his peers that can't sustain a movie on the one joke wonder that works briefly but only when used sparingly. This is the tragedy of the movie for me since it could have provided a decent story, plenty of comedy, and even a sappy romantic angle that was largely underserved here but it routinely and repeatedly went for the cheap laugh. You can find one of the earlier releases of the movie dirt cheap if you really want to see the few scenes worthy of your time but otherwise, this triple dip on HD DVD is hardly the kind of movie with replay power or the quality it should have had so I rated it as a Skip It.

Picture: The Nutty Professor II: The Klumps was presented in a true 1080p High Definition widescreen color with the original aspect ratio of 1.85:1 as originally released in theaters. Director Peter Segal has made some modest successes since this one that worked more consistently but the visual elements were decent. The HD DVD was not surprisingly encoded in the common VC-1 codec, on a single sided, single layer disc and while it was not the movie to showcase a high end set up, it wasn't bad either. I never saw this on a SD DVD previously, but I was impressed that the movie looked decent in most places. This being an HD DVD, I expected more but a comparison this weekend between the collector's edition and this version showed some marginal improvement in terms of detail, colors, and clarity but some parts looked like they were noisier than others; such as one of the scenes at night where the amount of noise was horrible as Sherman and Denise spoke for a few moments. There was edge enhancement observed and the special effects did not translate as well as they should have but the movie did not fail for the technical matters.

Sound: The audio was another area that received some improvement but not enough to justify an upgrade unless you find a decent sale. The primary track was a 5.1 TrueHD in English, secondary tracks in 5.1 Dolby Digital+ (the English one sounding quite similar to the previous track) and a French track added in that I listened to for a bit (spot checking it). The separation and dynamic range were among the best I'd heard from an HD-DVD title, the rear speakers kicking in substantially during specific passages, thankfully reminding me they were there. Most of the talking still came from the center channel (as expected) but it was nice to hear some head space involving the positioning and effects bolstering the movie and giving me something nice to say about it. I could not compare this version to the double dip version referred to as the "uncensored" version that was notable for the DTS track but it was a lot better than the SD version I borrowed from a friend to compare it with (whereas the video elements were clearly a step in the right direction but only a marginal improvement). The subtitles were provided in either English SDH or French, employing large white lettering at the bottom of the screen in bold to make for easy reading.

Extras: One of the things most of you are going to care about will be the extras given that the previous versions had differing extras even though released fairly close together. The extras were largely the same as on the first release, consisting of the Janet Jackson Doesn't Really Matter music video in SD, the Behind the Scenes featurette on the making of the movie called Spotlight on Location: The Making of The Nutty Professor II: The Klumps, a very brief set of outtakes that did little to impress me, a storyboard comparison feature, a deleted scene between Sherman and Denise looking into a house to buy pending their nuptials, an extended scene for the restaurant sequence adding some lame bits to make it lamer, and a special feature on the prosthetic makeup used by Eddie Murphy to transform himself into so many characters. I think I appreciated the director's audio commentary more than the movie itself with Director Peter Segal detailing some of the problems that he had with the production and roadblocks he came across; proving he had some snap even if the movie fell flat for me. This was followed by an extra that was labeled as A Conversation with Director Peter Segal and Producer Brian Grazer of lesser value. Grazer seemed like he was terribly uncomfortable in the role and I initially thought the extra was a misprint since the movie kept playing and it was another audio commentary until it stopped after awhile. I guess what cheesed me off the most was the fact that many of the extras from the second release of the movie were not included, a huge issue for someone that might be buying the movie for a third time. The running time of the movie was 106:53 minutes (though IIRC, the credits were rolling before the 100 minute mark) if that helps provide anyone with a glimpse into which running time it compares to on the previous versions.

Final Thoughts: The Nutty Professor II: The Klumps was an admittedly low brow attempt at humor catering to the LCD audience as a popcorn flick so it really is a toss up as to whether or not some of you will appreciate it. If you like bathroom humor, old age and fat jokes, and abrasive but repetitive racial stereotypes, it may be a swell though lightweight movie for you to enjoy a time or two. I had to watch it a few times to compare the SD version and listen to the commentary(s), with each viewing dragging my opinion down but I realize that some of you will overlook the many holes in the plot, the weakness of the material, and the roughshod manner in which The Nutty Professor II: The Klumps seemed to be put together. Was this the best that Universal could do at this time (in terms of their back catalog needing to be released on HD DVD)? I sure hope not because this version did not have the same extras as previous editions (glowing reviews for which can be found here Collector Edition and here Uncensored

), and there are so many worthier titles practically begging to come out that a gross out comedy like this one should have been far down the list.