The Nutty Professor (1996 film)


The Nutty Professor is a 1996 American slapstick science-fiction comedy film starring Eddie Murphy. It is a remake of the 1963 film of the same name, which starred Jerry Lewis, which itself was a parody of Robert Louis Stevenson's 1886 novella Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. The film co-stars Jada Pinkett, James Coburn, Larry Miller, Dave Chappelle and John Ales. The original music score was composed by David Newman. The film won Best Makeup at the 69th Academy Awards.
Murphy portrays a university professor, Sherman Klump, a brainy and kind-hearted man who is morbidly obese. A research scientist, academic, and lecturer, Klump develops a miraculous, but experimental, weight-loss pharmaceutical, and hoping to win the affection of the girl of his dreams, tests it upon himself. Like the original film's Julius Kelp, Klump's vigorous, charismatic, but evil alter ego takes the name "Buddy Love". Murphy plays a total of seven characters in the film, including Sherman, most of Sherman's family.
The film received positive reviews, with critics particularly praising the makeup and Murphy's performance. The film's success spawned a sequel, , which was released in 2000.

Plot

At Wellman College, thousands of hamsters overrun the campus after being accidentally released by Sherman Klump, a morbidly obese, kind-hearted professor. Meanwhile, Sherman has created an experimental formula that reconstructs the DNA of an obese person in a way that allows them to lose weight more easily.
After his lecture, Sherman meets and instantly falls in love with Carla Purty, a chemistry graduate who is a big fan of his work. After dinner with his impolite family, Sherman asks Carla out on a date, which she accepts, much to Sherman's surprise. The date begins well with Carla showing admiration for Sherman's work, but the club's obnoxious guest comedian, Reggie Warrington, publicly mocks him about his weight. Sherman becomes depressed and, after having a nightmare in which he becomes a rampaging hungry giant that destroys the city, he tests his serum on himself, losing 250 pounds within seconds. Overwhelmed by his immediate weight loss, he goes out and buys copious amounts of normal-sized clothing to celebrate, and a $47,000 Dodge Viper RT/10 sports car on his faculty expense account. However, Sherman discovers that the effects of the serum are only temporary.
Concealing his true identity, Sherman adopts a false identity, "Buddy Love", and invites Carla out on a date at the same club again. Reggie is present again, and Buddy takes revenge by heckling him mercilessly. Sherman's "Buddy" persona starts to develop an independent personality due to the heightened testosterone levels of the transformation, gradually changing from his regular good-natured self to perverted and super-confident. Klump's assistant and friend Jason spots Buddy fleeing the scene after he is identified as the person who left Klump's credit card at the bar. Jason follows Buddy and witnesses his transformation back into Sherman Klump.
The next morning, Dean Richmond has set up a meeting with Sherman and wealthy businessman Harlan Hartley at The Ritz to explain the serum in the hopes of gaining Hartley's $10,000,000 donation to the science department. However, Sherman arrives at The Ritz as Buddy with Carla. When Richmond spots him, Carla asks Buddy if he will take Sherman's place; he does, taking all the credit of Sherman's work. Hartley and Richmond are very impressed, and Richmond invites him to the Alumni Ball the next night. Meanwhile, Buddy picks up three beautiful women, much to Carla's anger and disgust, who dumps him and walks out. He invites the women and many other people back to his place for the night to throw a party and sleeps with the three women.
Richmond not only fires Sherman, but gleefully tells him that Buddy will be taking his place at the Alumni Ball. Sherman sees a taunting videotape from his alter ego and decides he has had enough of Buddy, making the decision to destroy all of the serum samples, which he does with Jason's help. Sherman plans to set things right with Carla and get the grant from Hartley. Unfortunately, Buddy planned for this by hiding a sample of the serum in one of Sherman's diet shake cans, which Sherman drinks, causing him to transform into Buddy again. Jason tries to stop him from going to the ball, but Buddy knocks him out with a single punch to the face and departs.
At the ball, Buddy demonstrates the effects of the serum to the audience, but Jason arrives in time and confronts Buddy, as he has found out that Buddy's testosterone levels are at a lethally high 60,000%. Buddy plans to drink a large sum of the potion to get rid of Sherman for good; Jason knows that if he drinks it, it will kill Sherman and possibly Buddy. The two of them get into a brief fistfight, but Sherman begins to fight Buddy from within. Sherman eventually transforms into his regular self and admits his misdeeds to the shocked audience, including his parents and Carla; he says that Buddy was who he thought he and everybody else wanted him to be, and that he should accept himself for who he is. As he leaves, Carla stops him and asks why he lied; he says he did not believe that she would accept him. While they don't initiate a romantic relationship, Sherman and Carla remain friends and share a dance together. Richmond rehires Sherman and Hartley gives the donation to Sherman because he is "a brilliant scientist and a gentleman."

Cast

The Nutty Professor was the first Tom Shadyac film to feature outtakes over the closing credits. The film also has a series of scenes with Murphy and comedian Dave Chappelle who plays insult comic, Reggie Warrington. Much of their dialogue was improvised. Murphy was one of Chappelle's biggest comedic influences. Reggie Warrington is named after Reginald and Warrington Hudlin, brothers, and directors of one of Murphy's previous films, Boomerang.
While the film was made with the help of Jerry Lewis, he later recanted his position in an interview in the January 30/February 6, 2009 edition of Entertainment Weekly magazine. He was quoted as saying, "I have such respect for Eddie, but I should not have done it. What I did was perfect the first time around and all you're going to do is diminish that perfection by letting someone else do it."

Reception

Critical response

The Nutty Professor has received generally positive reviews from critics. Rotten Tomatoes gave the film a score of 64% based on reviews from 55 critics. The site's consensus states: "The Nutty Professor falls back on juvenile humor eagerly and often, but Eddie Murphy's consistently funny work in dual roles means more for audiences to love." Metacritic gave the film a score of 62 out of 100, based on reviews from 20 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews". Audiences surveyed by CinemaScore gave the film a grade A- on scale of A to F.
Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times gave the film 3 stars out of 4, calling it "a movie that's like a thumb to the nose for everyone who said lost it. He's very good. And the movie succeeds in two different ways: it's sweet and good-hearted, and then again it's raucous slapstick and bathroom humor. I liked both parts." Owen Gleiberman of Entertainment Weekly gave the film a B+, writing "You can feel Murphy rediscovering his joy as a performer. He rediscovers it, too, as Sherman Klump, a fellow who, much like Murphy, is on the bottom rung, desperate to reinvent himself, and — at long last — does."

Box office

The Nutty Professor was a box office success, opening with $25,411,725 and reaching a domestic sum of $128,814,019, and $145,147,000 internationally, for a total of $273,961,019 worldwide.

Awards

Sequel

A sequel, was released on July 28, 2000.