Nutty Professor II: The Klumps

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Nutty Professor II: The Klumps
Theatrical poster
Directed by	Peter Segal
Produced by	James D. Brubaker Brian Grazer Karen Kehela Jerry Lewis Eddie Murphy Tom Shadyac
Written by	Jerry Lewis (characters) Steve Oedekerk Barry W. Blaustein David Sheffield Paul Weitz Chris Weitz
Starring	Eddie Murphy Janet Jackson Larry Miller John Ales Richard Gant
Cinematography	Dean Semler
Editing by	William Kerr
Distributed by	Universal Pictures
Release date(s)	July 28, 2000
Running time	106 minutes (109 in director's cut)
Country	USA
Language	English
Preceded by	The Nutty Professor
IMDb profile

Nutty Professor II: The Klumps is a 2000 film, the sequel to the 1996 remake of the 1963 film. The film stars Eddie Murphy and Janet Jackson. As in the 1996 film, Murphy, swathed in prosthetic fat, plays not only the inept but brilliant scientist, Sherman Klump, but also (wearing different, but equally elaborate makeup) most of Sherman's family as well. In the first movie, however, the Klumps have a limited presence and, in fact, narrowly escaped being cut from the script altogether; here, they receive abundant screen time. Various subplots involving Sherman's family occupy much of the middle of the film.

1 Plot
2 Critical Reception
3 Footnotes
4 External links

[edit] Plot

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

As the film opens, Sherman is working on a new miracle formula--this time, the fountain of youth. He is also preparing to marry a fellow scientist, Denise (Jackson). Unfortunately, he has started suffering from personality lapses that are threatening to alienate his bride-to-be: against his will, he acts like the obnoxious, hypersexed Buddy Love of the first film. After a particularly unpleasant incident, Sherman goes to his lab and permanently extracts Buddy Love's DNA from his own.

The orphaned DNA, a glowing blob of jelly, combines with a hair from a basset hound and grows instantaneously into an adult man, Buddy Love--now a fully autonomous being. Thanks to his doggy heritage, however, this Buddy Love has a tendency to chase cats and cars. Sherman, meanwhile, has inflicted so much genetic damage on himself by removing Buddy that his brain cells begin dying at an exponential rate.

Buddy steals some of Sherman's youth formula, planning to sell it to the highest bidder, then adds a household chemical to the remainder of the mixture. When Sherman administers the adulterated potion to a hamster in front of a large audience, the hamster grows to enormous size and performs an unnatural act (offscreen) on the Dean (Miller), who is trying to hide under a fur coat. After the fiasco, the deeply traumatised Dean tells Sherman: You're FAT, and DUMB, and FIRED.

This, however, is the least of Sherman's problems; his brain damage is now reaching a critical level. With the help of his loyal lab assistant, Jason, he devises a strategy to restore his mind. He plans to reintegrate Buddy into his DNA by reverting him back to the jelly-like matter he used to be, then sucking him up through a straw.

Sherman concocts a new, stronger youth formula, gets a tennis ball, and heads to an office where Buddy is pitching the youth formula he stole. When Sherman arrives, he throws the tennis ball, and Buddy's dog genes compel him to give chase. Sherman has coated the ball with his new, super potent youth formula, and when Buddy catches the ball, he turns into a toddler. He runs off, then melts into a gelatinous blob that continues fleeing until it dissipates on the edge of a public fountain.

Sherman, his mind all but gone, sadly tells Denise, whom he no longer recognises, that he's no smart, never, no more. As his friends begin to usher him away, Sherman turns and mumbles something about "pretty water". Everyone sees the fountain's water glowing a bright neon blue. Denise realizes that Buddy's DNA is still alive in the water. She commands Sherman to drink, and he rapidly regains his mental faculties. In the last scene, Sherman and Denise are wed.

As in the first film, bloopers accompany the closing credits.

[edit] Critical Reception

Although audiences seemed to like it, The Klumps was widely panned. Adjectives such as "vulgar", "unfocused", "tasteless", and "tired" crop up frequently in reviews for this film^[1]. The New Yorker's Anthony Lane is particularly severe; in addition to hating the film on general principles, he dismisses Murphy's playing of multiple characters as "minstrelling", and charges the actor with "at once feeding us what we like and despising us for swallowing it."^[2] Most critics, however, mix a generally negative assessment of the movie with at least a nod towards Murphy's versatility and comic talent.