Word: klump
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...played seven characters, all brilliantly. The one unattractive figure, Buddy Love, was a wicked stretch of the Eddie Murphy personality that moviegoers had tired of: sleek, preening, abrasive, an overdog in love with itself. The other characters were marvels not just of makeup but also of comic sympathy; Sherman Klump and his pudgy, putrefactive family had humor and heart. The $130 million box-office take showed how much affection filmgoers still had for Murphy. They hoped it heralded a new Golden Age for the Golden Child...
...outlines of "The Nutty Professor" go back to our old pal(s) Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, and, more specifically, the Jerry Lewis classic by the same name. In this version, however, the professor, Sherman Klump (Eddie Murphy, thanks to seamless makeup) consumes a formula that cures both the excessive frumpiness and (in a twist on the original film) lumpiness that he believes might hamper his success with an attractive young grad student (Jada Pinkett). The new Klump, under the alias Buddy Love, proves devious and reckless in his pursuits, threatening the research money sought so assiduously by the unctuously...
...Klump's new identity consists of a smaller waistline and an enormous ego--in truth, a highly concentrated version of early Eddie Murphy himself. Klump/Love is literally a pivotal role for Murphy. At one moment, he is playing Sherman Klump as a full and sympathetic character, a performance where others might have relied on the novelty of girth. A splitsecond later he turns around and goes back to his old tricks until they self-destruct. The now-tired, brazen "Beverly Hills Cop"-type character of old--outrageous and obnoxious arrogance, hilarious, often vulgar one-liners--is exaggerated and mocked...
Unfortunately, if Murphy makes a statement here by destroying his own character before our eyes and demonstrating other abilities through Klump, he isn't helped by the generally low-grade comedy that pervades much of the film. Boring flatulence jokes gradually steam roll over the otherwise superbly sick Klump family portrait (a lewd grandmother talking forever of "relations"; Sherman's babying mother who believes a baby's first step unimportant compared to his first roof-rumbling belch). Soon Klump's post-transformation celebration turns idiotic and offensive; it's as if "Eddie Murphy Raw" took over and started telling stand...
Ironically, one of the finest parts of the film involves Murphy attacking a mean stand-up comedian. Buddy Love returns with his date to the Def Comedy Jamtype comic (Dave Chapelle) who before had made public mockery of him as Sherman Klump. Turning heckler, Buddy begins by sarcastically praising the comic for his ability to pick out and pick on people for their weaknesses. Thereafter, things turn ugly for the poor guy: in a sequence owing a lot to Steve Martin's nose-joke routine in a bar in "Roxanne," Buddy proceeds to roast the comic to a crisp. Where...