Nutty Professor II: The Klumps

Nutty Professor II: The Klumps
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	Peter Segal
Screenplay by	Barry W. Blaustein David Sheffield Paul Weitz Chris Weitz
Story by	Barry W. Blaustein David Sheffield Steve Oedekerk
Produced by	Brian Grazer
Starring	Eddie Murphy Janet Jackson Larry Miller
Cinematography	Dean Semler
Edited by	William Kerr
Music by	David Newman
Production company	Imagine Entertainment
Distributed by	Universal Pictures
Release date	July 28, 2000 (2000-07-28)
Running time	107 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English
Budget	$84 million
Box office	$166.3 million

Nutty Professor II: The Klumps is a 2000 American science-fiction romantic-comedy film directed by Peter Segal. It is a sequel to the 1996 film The Nutty Professor.

In contrast to the previous film, subplots which are centered on his parents (with his brother and grandmother providing comic relief) occupy a substantial part of the film. Like the first film, the sequel's theme song is "Macho Man" by The Village People, which this time is played during the end credits.

Background

Several years after receiving favorable reception in Poetic Justice, Jackson decided to attempt a romantic comedy. Jackson had been offered leading roles in The Matrix, X-Men, and Jerry Maguire, but was unable to accept each due to touring. After auditioning, Jackson was cast as Professor Denise Gaines.

Plot

After finding success with a DNA restructuring formula in the first film, Sherman Klump has created another formula which enables those who take it to find the Fountain of Youth. He has also met and fallen in love with a colleague, Denise Gaines, who has developed a method to isolate genetic material and later becomes his fiancée. Together, their work has enabled Wellman College to receive a $150 million award from a pharmaceutical firm to the excitement of Dean Richmond, who has grown to adore and respect Sherman. Despite his good fortune, Sherman has a major problem: the personality of his vanquished alter ego, Buddy Love, is still ingrained inside him and causes him to act out in the same crass manner Buddy does. Sherman tries proposing to Denise, but then Buddy kicks in and makes it a perverted sex request, causing Denise to become mortified.

Determined to be rid of Buddy permanently, and despite Jason warning him of potentially catastrophic consequences for his health, Sherman uses Denise's methodology to isolate and remove the gene in Sherman's DNA where Buddy has manifested and extracts it from inside his body. However, he does not dispose of the genetic material and as a result, Buddy becomes a sentient being when a hair from a Basset Hound named Buster who was Sherman's test subject finds its way into it and causes such a reaction. To make matters worse, Jason's suspicions prove correct when Sherman discovers that, due to the extraction, his brain cells are beginning to deteriorate.

Realizing he needs to keep the youth formula out of Buddy's hands, Sherman stashes it at his parents' house. Buddy, who is trying to sell the formula to a different company, quickly realizes where it is, steals some of it and doctors the remainder with fertilizer.

This sabotage causes chaos at a demonstration the next day, as a hamster Sherman uses to demonstrate the youth finding effects instead mutates into an aggressive monster who violates Dean Richmond in front of a live television audience. The humiliated and enraged Dean fires Sherman, who learns that his brain's deterioration has worsened from Jason, before he decides to end his engagement and break up with Denise.

In a last-ditch effort to secure the money, Sherman quickly works on a newer, much more potent formula (while his mental faculties allow him to). Richmond confronts him about Buddy's actions, believing the two are working together. He leaves with Richmond and a tennis ball and head to the competing firm. Meanwhile, a worried Denise discovers what has happened and that Sherman's brain damage has progressed to almost eighty percent. Enlisting the help of Sherman's father Cletus, Denise goes after him. Sherman takes advantage of the canine DNA that crossed with Buddy's, and uses the tennis ball to play fetch.

The ball is covered with the new formula, which takes Buddy back to an infantile state and eventually to a glowing mass of genetic material for Sherman to suck the genetic material back into his body through a straw, thus putting his DNA back together and returning him to normal. However, as Sherman chases what is left of Buddy, the glowing mass evaporates and thus Sherman cannot restore his intelligence.

Denise and Cletus arrive too late to save him, and seeing what has happened to Sherman, Denise breaks into tears. As they go to leave, Sherman takes a look at a fountain and remarks that it is "pretty". Seeing that the water is glowing, Denise realizes that the genetic material has reconstituted and that if Sherman drinks the water before it dissipates, he will be restored to normal. Sherman eventually drinks the water with the help of Denise and Cletus, and thus he is able to get his genetic makeup back in proper order.

The film closes with Denise and Sherman's wedding reception, with Buddy nowhere to be found. Dean Richmond rehires Sherman with a wedding present, and the hamster is back to normal and Dean Richmond decides to love the hamster.

Cast

• Eddie Murphy as Professor Sherman Klump / Buddy Love / Papa Cletus Klump / Young Papa Cletus Klump / Ernie Klump Sr. / Mama Anna Klump / Grandma Ida Jenson / Lance Perkins
• Janet Jackson as Denise Gaines
• Larry Miller as Dean Richmond
• John Ales as Jason
• Richard Gant as Mr. Gaines
• Anna Maria Horsford as Mrs. Gaines
• Melinda McGraw as Leanne Guilford
• Jamal Mixon as Ernie Klump Jr.
• Wanda Sykes as Chantal
• Freda Payne as Claudine
• Nikki Cox as Miss Stamos (Credited as Bright Student)
• Chris Elliott as Restaurant Manager
• Earl Boen as Dr. Knoll
• Charles Napier as Four Star General
• Frank Welker as Petey

Release

Box office

The film grossed over $42.5 million in its opening weekend and went on to a total gross of over $123.3 million. It earned an additional $43 million in other territories, for a worldwide total of $166.3 million worldwide.

Critical reception

Unlike the first film, Nutty Professor II received mixed reviews from critics. Adjectives such as "obnoxious", "lowbrow", "bloated", and "unfunny" cropped up frequently in reviews. On Rotten Tomatoes the film has an approval rating of 26% based on reviews from 88 critics. The site's consensus states that "While Eddie Murphy is still hilarious as the entire Klump family, the movie falls apart because of uneven pacing, a poor script, and skits that rely on being gross rather than funny." On Metacritic the film has a score of 38 out of 100, based on reviews from 34 critics. Audiences surveyed by CinemaScore gave the film a grade C+ on scale of A to F.

Salon.com's reviewer gave the movie one of its few positive notices, and offered the praise "cheerfully vulgar". The New Yorker's Anthony Lane was particularly severe; in addition to hating the film, he dismissed Murphy's playing of multiple characters as "minstrelling", and charged the actor with "at once feeding us what we like and despising us for swallowing it." Most critics, gave a generally negative assessment of the movie with at least a nod towards Murphy's versatility and comic talent.

Roger Ebert gave the film three stars, noting that while it was "raucous" and "scatological," the film overall proved to be "very funny" and "never less than amazing." Variety's Joe Leydon wrote: "Be prepared to laugh less at a lot more of the same thing in this overbearing but underwhelming sequel."

Soundtrack

Main article: Nutty Professor II: The Klumps (soundtrack)

External links

• Official website
• Nutty Professor II: The Klumps at IMDb
• Nutty Professor II: The Klumps at the TCM Movie Database
• Nutty Professor II: The Klumps at Box Office Mojo
• Nutty Professor II: The Klumps at Rotten Tomatoes
• Nutty Professor II: The Klumps at Metacritic