Prime Time: Nutty Professor II: The Klumps (2000)

Although it seems to be largely forgotten nowadays, The Nutty Professor was a fun remake of a classic Jerry Lewis vehicle. It wasn’t a masterpiece, but it updated the story well and packed in a decent number of laughs. Tom Shadyac directed well enough, and Eddie Murphy was on good form when not in the scenes that had him playing multiple roles.

The Nutty Professor II: The Klumps doesn’t realise what worked in the first film though. We now have Peter Seagal directing (someone who has helmed a handful of decent comedies) and even more scenes allowing Eddie Murphy to act alongside his favourite scene partner, Eddie Murphy.

Murphy once again plays almost every member of his family, the Klumps, but this time around the plot sees Sherman thinking he has discovered a scientific fountain of youth. He also aims to remove any shred of Buddy Love from his genetic material, and he is in love with a colleague, Denise (Janet Jackson). Things start to go wrong, of course, once Buddy is separated from Sherman. Not only do the two end up competing over Sherman’s new scientific miracle, but Sherman starts to lose a significant amount of brain cells, meaning that he actually needs to incorporate Buddy back into his system if he wants to keep his intelligence and his career.

There isn’t really too much that needs said about this. It is another Eddie Murphy vehicle that ends up being both helped and hindered by the leading man. Segal directs competently enough, but he cannot overcome a script that relies on numerous fart gags, dream sequences to give Murphy more screentime (and more fart gags), and a number of sniggers at the idea of a man being sodomised by a giant hamster. I am sure Paul and Chris Weitz, two of the co-writers on this, don’t have this at the top of their CV.

Murphy does well enough in his various roles, and it’s hard to watch this even today and not appreciate the skill required to interlock his various performances, with the only major mis-step being Buddy Love, who is as annoying as he was the first time around, but also has some extra canine DNA mixed in this time. Jackson is very sweet and appealing, taking on a thankless role that is made even more thankless while she takes a backseat to the multiple Murphys. And then we have poor Larry Miller, a man who has to suffer the indignity of being the “punchline” in that aforementioned hamster sequence.

While it remains far from the worst Eddie Murphy vehicle, and that is a low bar indeed, this just isn’t very good. But, even worse, it’s a disappointingly huge step down from the previous film. That felt like an attempt to update an old film into something that would entertain comedy fans. This feels like an attempt to simply entertain Murphy.

4/10

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April Fools: Naked Gun 33 1/3: The Final Insult (1994)

At the time of writing, this is the last movie in The Naked Gun franchise. Ed Helms is being lined up to take over the main role, apparently, but it's hard to think of anyone being able to make the role their own after such fine work from the late, great Leslie Nielsen.

In this absurd adventre, Frank Drebin (Nielsen) has retired from the police force. He's happily married to Jane (Priscilla Presley) but misses being able to legally shoot people in the street. The fact that Jane wants to start a family also causes him some stress, something that he escapes when Ed (George Kennedy) and Nordberg (O. J. Simpson) call on him for help. They want Frank to go undercover, to get close to a criminal named Rocco (Fred Ward), and to find out about whatever bad, explosive plans he has in store.

All of the main players are as good as they have been in the previous movies, and Fred Ward is a lot of fun as Rocco. Kathleen Freeman is also very good as Rocco's mother, Muriel, but the good work by everyone else is almost undone by Anna Nicole Smith, playing Rocco's gal, Tanya. She's not quite as bad as some people would have you believe, but . . . . . . . . . . she's . . . . . . not good, and is easily the worst performer onscreen.

With Peter Segal taking over the directorial duties this time around, there's definitely something lacking from this third trip to the well. Perhaps it's just the law of diminishing returns, or familiarity breeding contempt, because there are still a number of great gags packed into the script (written by David Zucker, Pat Proft and Robert LoCash). The opening sequence, in particular, is a doozy. In fact, maybe the rest of the film simply suffers in comparison to that great comic riff on The Untouchables. The finale, taking place at the Academy Awards ceremony, may feel a bit tired and desperate, but it's hard to judge the movie too harshly when it comes as the capper to so many laughs and fun moments.

I can't imagine any fans of this type of humour hating this film, but a sense of disappointment may well outweigh a lot of the good feeling. I still like this, I just like it less than the first two movies. But those first two movies, to be fair, were SO good.

6/10

http://www.amazon.com/Film-Favorites-Nielsen-Wrongfully-Accused/dp/B00AMSQBUI/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1398040171&sr=8-2&keywords=naked+gun