DVD Movie Rating for: The Nutty Professor

Rating for The Nutty Professor: 4 out of 5 stars

Movie Plot of: The Nutty Professor

For Professor Sherman Klump, being the big man on campus wasn't all it's cracked up to be. His body was disproportionate. His family was dysfunctional. And his love life was disastrous.

But now, thanks to the miracle of modern science, his world is about to change as pounds--and inhibitions--melt away.

A contemporary twist on the Jekyll-and-Hyde tale, The Nutty Professor stars Eddie Murphy in an Imagine Entertainment production for Universal Pictures inspired by the 1963 Jerry Lewis comedy. Tom Shadyac, whose first feature film as a director was Jim Carrey's breakout hit Ace Ventura, Pet Detective, brings his deft comic touch to the story of a brilliant, calorically challenged chemistry professor who almost discovers the perfect diet solution.

Having tried everything--diets, exercise and weight loss experts--in an unsuccessful attempt to shed some of his 400 pounds, Sherman Klump invents a revolutionary fat gene formula. Testing it on himself, he discovers he's no longer the man he used to be; in fact, he's only half the man he used to be.

With one swig, the gentle, painfully shy academician is transformed into the swaggering Casanova, Buddy Love--an irresistible ladies' man who can talk his way out of any predicament.

As Buddy Love, Sherman Klump for the very first time experiences life that he could once only envy. No longer the butt of every butt joke--and every other kind of joke imaginable--Buddy Love can dish out what kind-hearted Sherman has always had to take.

Most remarkable of all, this new personality gives Sherman the confidence to pursue the chemistry department's beautiful new professor, Carla Purty (Jada Pinkett). Indeed everything, to Sherman's utter amazement, is beyond his most perfect dreams--until one fateful day when he discovers that his long-lasting creation is actually an unstable substance that can wear off at anytime

DVD Production Details of: The Nutty Professor

Starring: Eddie Murphy

Director: Tom Shadyac

Format: Color, Closed-captioned, Widescreen, Dolby

Aspect Ratio(s): 1.85:1

Audio Encoding: Dolby Digital 5.1, Dolby Digital 2.0 Surround Rated:

Studio: Universal Studios

DVD Release Date: September 2, 2003

Run Time: 103

Laserdisc Information

Details of the Laserdisc edition of The Nutty Professor: CLV 43033, Letterboxed, 1 hour 36 mins, Extended Play, AC, Closed Captioned, Dolby Surround

Cast of the movie: The Nutty Professor

• Eddie Murphy .... Professor Sherman Klump/Buddy Love/Lance Perkins/Cletus 'Papa' Klump/Anna Pearl 'Mama' Jensen Klump/Ida Mae 'Granny' Jensen/Ernie Klump, Sr.
• Jada Pinkett Smith .... Professor Carla Purty (as Jada Pinkett)
• James Coburn .... Harlan Hartley
• Larry Miller .... Dean Richmond
• David Chappelle .... Reggie Warrington (as Dave Chappelle)
• John Ales .... Jason
• Patricia Wilson .... Grace (the Dean's Secretary)
• Jamal Mixon .... Ernie Klump, Jr.
• Nichole McAuley .... Fit Woman
• Hamilton von Watts .... Health Instructor
• Chao Li Chi .... Asian Man (as Chao-Li Chi)
• Tony Carlin .... Host
• Quinn Duffy .... Bartender
• Montell Jordan .... Himself
• Doug Williams .... Band Leader
• David Ramsey .... Student
• Chaz Lamar Shepherd .... Student
• Lisa Halpern .... Sad Fat Girl
• Mark McPherson .... Doctor
• John Prosky .... Doctor
• Michael Rothhaar .... Doctor
• Sara Ballantine .... Nurse
• Greg Natale .... Cop
• Roy Werner .... Guy in Crowd
• Retha Jones .... Woman in Crowd
• Steve Monroe .... Student
• Joe Greco .... Officer Dag, Security Guard
• Nick Kokotakis .... Waiter
• Stanley D. Petter III .... Fireman
• Mohammad Mohsen .... Bodybuilder
• Michael D. Starks .... Boxing Trainer
• Julianne Christie .... Sporting Goods Clerk
• Christie Blanchard-Power .... Woman Dignitary
• Alexia Robinson .... Sexy Girl
• Lisa Boyle .... Sexy Girl
• Athena Massey .... Sexy Girl
• Judith Woodbury .... Wellman College Alumni
• Linda Grigorian .... Girl at Table
• Ned von Leuck

Photo Gallery of the movie: The Nutty Professor

Reviews of the movie: The Nutty Professor

Based on the Jerry Lewis classic, The Nutty Professor is the story of Professor Sherman Klump, a grossly obese chemistry professor who creates a potion to make himself slim.

Let's be honest. Eddie Murphy hasn't made a funny movie in a very long time. For most of us, Jerry Lewis is the guy who hosts the Muscular Dystrophy Telethon every Labor Day, not the filmmaker who is a hailed as a comedic genius in France.

So it was with a bit of trepidation that I settled into the second row of a movie theater whose seats were so tightly packed that I could barely get my 160 pounds comfortably placed on the worn velveteen. It made me appreciate Sherman's prodigious problems all the more.

The Nutty Professor is one of the reasons I see films in real theaters with paying audiences. Had I seen this in a private screening room, I would have shuddered at the crudity of some of the jokes. Actually I was expecting quite a bit more, considering that The Nutty Professor is helmed by Tom Shadyac, director of the Cranky numbing Ace Ventura, Pet Detective. I suspect that it would have been just to damned quiet amidst the cushy chairs and half filled private rooms. In a real theater, filled to just about capacity, the house was rocking with laughter.

Director Shadyac gets most of the grotesque, and I do mean grotesque, visuals out of the way right up front as laboratory hamsters overrun the school campus where Klump works. Sherman is put on notice by the grumpiest of Deans (played with the usual joie de grump by TV's Larry Miller) and goes home to his parents house for dinner with the family. Fire up the movie whiz-bang technology for, in the dinner scene, Eddie Murphy tears the roof off the sucka.

As Grandma Klump, Eddie Murphy is an incredibly randy old lady, whose mind is definitely stuck about three feet below her neck. And whose mouth spits out every lewd thought or piece of history it can muster.

As his own brother bodybuilding brother Ernie, Eddie Murphy is convinced that is bulk is all man muscle just waiting to be dollopped upon any lady lucky enough to get next to him. Course, with his attitude, none ever seem to.

As Papa Klump, Eddie Murphy cuts more cheese than should be humanly possible at any given time. And he's damn proud of it.

As Mama Klump, Eddie Murphy is just so darn proud of her gorgeous little baby boy that she could just slap her chubby little palms together and burst with pride.

And as Professor Sherman Klump, Eddie Murphy delivers a bravura performance as a gem of a man stuck inside 400 pounds of fat. Sherman is kind, gentle, Southern accented and self-deprecating; many of the stereotypical things we've come to associate with fat people. The difference here is that, despite all the fat jokes, Murphy (the actor) makes it crystal clear that Sherman the character is wracked with pain and an enormous amount of self-loathing and hate because of his weight. When he is smitten by an incredibly lovely grad student, appropriately named Carly Purty ("pretty" in a southern accent, played by Jada Pinkett, he decides to do something about it.

Enter Buddy Love. With a swig of a genetic recombinant concoction, Sherman drops almost 300 pounds and one hairdo and becomes a lean, mean, dressed-with-flash-and-wanting-to-have-sex-every-minute-of-the-day would-be love machine. With testosterone levels revved to 60,000 percent above normal, this character is raging Id unleashed. He is loud. He is obnoxious. He revels in his abandon and gets more in one night than I've had in years. He's the kind of dude that the rest of us normal guys look at and think "what does she see in him?" He is everything that Sherman has suppressed in himself and delivers the kind of raw humor that Eddie Murphy did in Raw.

The trials of Sherman Klump, as it is, play out in the rest of the movie. Sherman versus Buddy. Sherman versus the Dean. Buddy and the Dean shmoozing for dollars, and Carla Purty in the middle of it all. Rick Baker's makeup effects are stunning and though the film goes morph crazy at its finale, a good time was had by all