The Nutty Professor (1996)

“The truth is, Carla, I’m a big man. Now I will lose weight, but I’m always gonna be big no matter what I do. So anyone I end up with is just going to have to accept me for who I am. More importantly, I’m going to have to accept *myself* for who I am.” – Sherman Klump

Number of Times Seen – Three times (Theater in ’96, DVD and 31 Mar 2020)

Brief Synopsis – An obese scientific researcher creates a formula that will turn him into a slim and fast talking man but he has trouble controlling his new alter ego.

My Take on it – Eddie Murphy has always been a great comedian and is one of the many stand up comic to have reached stardom via TV and Movies

This film is another example of how he was able to show his talents to the world by playing numerous characters in the same film.

Unfortunately tho, the story, as presented here just isn’t as good or as interesting as one would expect and that is the root of the problem with this film.

There are far too many plot holes in the story that make things stranger and also less enjoyable as things move along.

The film’s novelty tho is the fact that Murphy is able to disguise himself under lots of makeup and play seemingly very diverse characters.

Some of these alter ego’s are easy to spot, but some are almost unrecognizable.

The fact that he can have 5 or 6 characters interact at a dinner table where all but one of them are played by Murphy is an astonishing feat.

The biggest problem with this film tho is the fact that they take certain scenes a bit too far and this takes a potentially poignant and meaningful story and turns it into something far more immature and juvenile which in turn drags the level of the story down much too far.

This is quiet a shame due to the potential that they had here but they still manage to get a few laughs along the way.

Bottom Line – Murphy is able to once again show off his comic talents where he can play numerous characters . The story itself just doesn’t work as well as one might hope tho and that’s problematic. The plot has far too many holes in it than there should be and that also hurts things. The novelty of this film is obviously the opportunity to once again see Murphy under heavy makeup play various characters. In some of them, he is very recognizable while in other almost indistinguishable. The biggest problem here is that they take things a bit too far in certain scenes and that turns a story that could be much more poignant into something far too immature and juvenile and that drags things down even farther than necessary which is a shame.

MovieRob’s Favorite Trivia – In the scene with Eddie Murphy and Dave Chappelle, their dialogue was mostly improvised. (From IMDB)

Rating – BAFTA Worthy (6/10)