THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, June 30, 1996 TAG: 9607030727
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E10 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Movie review
SOURCE: BY MAL VINCENT, MOVIE CRITIC
LENGTH: 67 lines
``OVERWEIGHTS Obnoxious'' might well be the more correct title for Eddie Murphy's remake of the 1963 Jerry Lewis vehicle ``The Nutty Professor'' - a vehicle that many within the industry are describing as Murphy's last chance for a return to major stardom. There's certainly nothing anonymous about the presence of ultra-loud and ultra-brassy Eddie.
The resulting film is not without laughs, but they are intermittent and persistently aimed at low targets.
In other words, Eddie goes for cheap laughs only. What he achieves is a low-brow, tasteless and ultimately repetitive film that makes fun of people's physical defects in general and fat folks in particular.
It has only one thing in common with the Jerry Lewis original - and that is the enormous ego of its star.
But even Jerry, in a burst of uncharacteristic humility, limited himself to just two roles. Here, Eddie plays seven. He's the film's two lead characters, Professor Sherman Klump (a shy 400-pound bespectacled underdog) and Buddy Love (a thin and obnoxious Romeo).
That would be enough, but, in portrayals more in debt to makeup than acting, he also portrays Sherman's papa, mama, grandma, and uncle. As if that weren't enough, he also plays a frenetic version of sweatin'-with-the-oldies guru Richard Simmons.
Even with all these characters, the writers (four of them) could come up with nothing better than flatulence jokes. There is a 20-minute flatulence sequence that may lay the least demanding viewer howling in the aisles, but for no more than a half minute.
The original Jerry Lewis film is not one that prompts anyone to regret that it has been blasphemed. (Only in Paris, perhaps, will this film promote rioting in the streets among the Lewis followers. The non-Lewis-crazed may well remember that it wasn't a very good film in the first place).
In this version, Sherman, the fat one, takes a serum and becomes thin. That's the plot - all of it. The point, a nice one, is that he should have been content to be his fat, winsome self rather than turning into the macho pig he becomes when he's thin.
The thin-to-fat premise is repeated over and over until the feature length of 95 minutes is reached.
As for Eddie's career, he'll still get another chance. This film, while not the comeback vehicle predicted, should do OK at the box office, particularly among 10 year olds (in spite of its PG-13 rating). Eddie, though, is having trouble evolving beyond the naughty boy roles that made him the top comedic star of the 1980s.
Just to be naughty, even with the supremely gross efforts here, is no longer enough. ILLUSTRATION: Photo
UNIVERSAL PICTURES
In ``The Nutty Professor,'' Eddie Murphy stars as Professor Sherman
Klump, an overweight chemistry professor who creates the
almost-perfect diet solution.
Graphic
MOVIE REVIEW
``The Nutty Professor''
Cast: Eddie Murphy, Jada Pinkett, James Coburn
Director: Tom Shadyac
MPAA rating: PG-13 (tasteless to the max, or near)
Mal's rating: Two stars
Locations: Area theaters by CNB