The Nutty Professor on PAL Laserdisc

• Cat.no: PLFEB 36071
• Cert: 12
• Running time: 92 minutes
• Sides: 2 (CLV)
• Year: 1996
• Pressing: UK, 1997
• Chapters: 34 (16/17+1)
• Sound: Dolby Surround
• Widescreen: 1.85:1
• Price: £24.99
• Extras : Trailers for The Paper, Apollo 13, Backdraft
  

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  Director:

  Tom Shadyac

  (Ace Ventura: Pet Detective, Liar Liar)

Producers:

Screenplay:

David Sheffield, Barry W. Blaustein, Tom Shadyac and Steve Oedekerk
(Based on the original film written by Jerry Lewis and Bill Richmomd)

Music:

David Newman

Cast:

Sherman Klump: Eddie Murphy (Beverly Hills Cop 1-3, Metro, Vampire in Brooklyn)
Carla Purty: Jada Pinkett (Jason’s Lyric, Set It Off)
Harlan Hartley: James Coburn (Affliction, Pat Garrett and Billy The Kid, Maverick)
Dean Richmond: Larry Miller (Pretty Woman, Undercover Blues)
Himself: Montell Jordan

The Nutty Professor is the 90s remake of the 1963 Jerry Lewis original, starring Eddie Murphy as the excessively overweight teacher, Dr. Sherman Klump.

After his first meeting with one of the new students in the building, a mutual attraction is struck up, and for their first date they head for a nightclub where a comic makes a mockery of Sherman’s size to the point where it makes him very depressed.

It’s time to put his latest scientific invention to the test. As creator of a DNA-restructing liquid to reduce weight by significant proportions, the treatment has been working wonders on his pet guinea pig. However, if he is to up the dose considerably, will it also work for him?

The answer is yes, and within a few minutes Sherman turns into Buddy Love, a slim, athletic man whose new-found figure gets the hots for wearing nothing but spandex. When he meets up with Carla again, this is the first time he’s seen her as his new persona, but the effects are beginning to wear off and his body begins to turn Sherman-like again, bringing some occasional neat SFX into action.

If there’s one problem with this film, it’s that when Sherman loses his weight he doesn’t really turn into Buddy Love, but … Eddie Murphy – the same Eddie Murphy from films such as Vampire in Brooklyn and Harlem Nights where he just behaved as himself with a wafer-thin character, and not the Eddie Murphy we remember from films such as 48 Hrs, Trading Places and Beverly Hills Cop where he actually played someone else and hadn’t got too big for his boots.

Also unfortunately, this film goes for all the obvious gags first, an example being when he first meets Carla, instead of saying “I’m flattered”, he comes out with “I’m fatter..”. Similarly, later on in a nightclub, as Klump and his date head for their table, he knocks over anyone and anything in his way in predicatable fashion.

Couple this with the usual film world of Eddie Murphy where white people become little more than a distant memory, plus Murphy’s over-use of foul language despite the film only being a 12-certificate, and the end result is a disappointment, not only because of the way the film is, but also because director Tom Shadyac‘s latest film, Liar Liar, was one of the funniest comedies I’ve ever seen.

And I haven’t even mentioned yet that Murphy goes several times further than repeating himself in Coming To America, where he played a few different customers who frequent a barber shop, by replicating the entire Klump family, who sit about the dining table farting endlessly.

Elsewhere in the cast is Jada Pinkett playing the token love interest, and a nothing-performance from James Coburn who may as well not have been in the film for all the difference it made.

One thing that there is worth shouting out about with this release is the picture quality which is first rate. The sound is very clear, but there’s nothing particularly outstanding to test our your surround system with, save for a reverse drive down the street when Sherman returns in full effect at the wrong time.

The disc is very well chaptered with 33 spread out over the 92-minute length of the film, and is followed by a trio of trailers for Ron Howard’s The Paper, Apollo 13 and Backdraft, all of which also are released by Imagine Films Entertainment. After the film itself, and in similar fashion to Shadyac’s latest, Liar Liar, there are outtakes shown during the end credits.

Overall, the film occasionally has its moments – but these are very few and far between. I’d recommend you save your money for the release of Liar Liar which should be along in a few months time.

Film: 2/5
Picture: 5/5
Sound: 3/5

Review copyright © Dominic Robinson, 1997.