The Nutty Professor (1996)

The Nutty Professor is a 1996 live action comedy film produced by Universal Studios and Imagine Entertainment. It stars Eddie Murphy as a college science teacher who makes his dreams come true once taking a weight-loss potion. It was a success at the box office, but a 50/50 decision with critics.
A sequel was made called The Nutty Professor II: The Klumps in 2000.
==Plot==
At the fictional Wellman College, thousands of hamsters are overrunning the entire campus, causing general chaos. This is due to Professor Sherman Klump (Eddie Murphy) accidentally releasing them by grazing the switch that opens the hamster’s cages. Meanwhile, Sherman has constructed an experimental formula that reconstructs the DNA of an obese person in a way that will allow them to lose weight more easily.
After class, Sherman meets and instantly falls in love with Carla Purty (Jada Pinkett), a chemistry graduate student who is a big fan of his work. After dinner with his obese, impolite family (most of whom are also portrayed by Murphy), Sherman asks Carla out on a date, which she accepts, much to Sherman's pleasant surprise. At the date, it begins well with Carla showing admiration for Sherman’s work, but Sherman falls victim to the club’s insult comic Reggie Warrington (Dave Chappelle), who attacks him with cruel jokes about his obesity. At home, completely depressed, he has a nightmare in which he becomes a giant and lays waste to the city with just a single fart, which is then accidentally lit on fire. When he awakens, he yields to the temptation to try the serum on himself. It works, as he loses 250 pounds in seconds; he also develops a split personality as the high testosterone levels causes him to be overly assertive and confident.
Dubbing himself Buddy Love (also portrayed by Murphy), he invites Carla back to the club where they dated. Reggie is present again, and Buddy heckles him mercilessly (largely by targeting Reggie's "mama" with fat jokes similar to the ones Reggie pelted him with); then stuffs him into a grand piano. The next morning, Dean Richmond (Larry Miller) has set up a meeting with Harlan Hartley (James Coburn) at The Ritz to have Sherman describe the serum. Sherman arrives at The Ritz as Buddy Love with Carla. When the dean spots him, Carla asks Buddy if he will take Sherman's place. He does, and he takes all the credit of his work to Hartley. Hartley and the dean are very impressed with his work, and the dean invites him to the alumni ball.
After a falling out with Carla, and Richmond gleefully telling Sherman that Buddy will be taking his place at the Alumni Ball. Sherman, having enough of his alter ego, destroys all of the serum samples, but transforms into Buddy again after sipping a diet drink that Buddy has filled with the serum. Sherman’s young assistant Jason (John Ales) tries to stop him from going to the ball, but Buddy knocks him out and departs. At the ball, Buddy demonstrates the effects of the serum to the audience, but Jason arrives in time, as he has found out that Buddy’s testosterone levels are at a lethally high 60,000%. The two of them get into a brief fist fight, but Sherman begins to fight Buddy from within. Sherman eventually transforms into his regular self and tells the alumni that he was wrong for what he did, that Buddy was who he thought he (and everybody else) wanted him to be, and that he should accept himself for who he is. As he leaves, Carla stops him and asks why he lied; he says he did not believe that she would accept him, but she says it doesn’t matter if he is overweight or not. The film ends with Sherman and Carla dancing, and Hartley giving the grant to Sherman because he is "a brilliant scientist and a gentleman."
==Cast==
*Eddie Murphy as Sherman Klump and the Klump family
*Jada Pinkett Smith as Carla Purty
*John Ales as Jason
*James Coburn as Harlan Hartley
*Larry Miller as Dean Richmond
*Dave Chappelle as Reggie Warrington
== Production ==
Producer Brian Grazer pursued the idea of remaking The Nutty Professor with a black lead after it was suggested to him by music producer Russell Simmons. Murphy and Grazer had hoped John Landis would direct, having previously worked successfully with Murphy. Ultimately Tom Shadyac, director of Ace Ventura: Pet Detective, joined the project. The Nutty Professor was the first Tom Shadyac film to feature outtakes over the closing credits.[citation needed] Murphy, Barry Blaustein, David Sheffield and Steve Oedekerk worked together on the screenplay. The film is not a strict remake of the Jerry Lewis film; Murphy said, "we stripped down the story to its bare bones and built it up to this whole different thing", adding elements from the story of Jekyll and Hyde as well as Cyrano de Bergerac.
The film has a series of scenes with Murphy and comedian Dave Chappelle who plays insult comic Reggie Warrington. Much of their dialogue was improvised.[citation needed] Murphy was one of Chappelle's biggest comedic influences. Reggie Warrington is named after Reginald and Warrington Hudlin, brothers, and directors of one of Murphy's previous films, Boomerang. Reginald Hudlin was stunned to see the obnoxious character was named after him and his brother, and to see the character violently stuffed into a piano.
The film was made with the help of Jerry Lewis. He was an executive producer for both this film and the 2000 sequel Nutty Professor II: The Klumps. In 2009 he expressed regret for allowing the remakes saying, "I have such respect for Eddie, but I should not have done it. What I did was perfect the first time around and all you're going to do is diminish that perfection by letting someone else do it."
Rick Baker created the fat suits for Murphy. They were made from urethane foam and a spandex suit, and filled with pockets of liquid to make it jiggle believably. It took three hours to apply the makeup each day. Baker praised Murphy saying "He really makes the stuff come to life, and he never complains. When we did The Nutty Professor [...], he spent 80-odd days in the makeup chair. As much as I love makeup, even I would have been complaining by the end, but Eddie didn't."
== Reception ==
=== Box office ===
The Nutty Professor was a box-office success, making an opening weekend gross with $25,411,725. It topped the box office during its opening weekend, beating out Eraser, The Hunchback of Notre Dame and Striptease. The film would hold the record for having the highest opening weekend for an Eddie Murphy film until it was taken by Dr. Dolittle in 1998. It reached a gross of $128,814,019 domestically, and $145,147,000 internationally, for a total of $273,961,019 worldwide.
=== Critical response ===
The Nutty Professor has received generally positive reviews from critics. Rotten Tomatoes gave the film a score of 65% based on reviews from 57 critics, with an average rating of 5.90/10. The site's consensus states: "The Nutty Professor falls back on juvenile humor eagerly and often, but Eddie Murphy's consistently funny work in dual roles means more for audiences to love." Metacritic gave the film a score of 62 out of 100, based on reviews from 20 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews". Audiences surveyed by CinemaScore gave the film a grade A− on scale of A to F.
Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times gave the film 3 stars out of 4, calling it "a movie that's like a thumb to the nose for everyone who said [Murphy had] lost it. He's very good. And the movie succeeds in two different ways: it's sweet and good-hearted, and then again it's raucous slapstick and bathroom humor. I liked both parts." Owen Gleiberman of Entertainment Weekly gave the film a B+, writing "You can feel Murphy rediscovering his joy as a performer. He rediscovers it, too, as Sherman Klump, a fellow who, much like Murphy, is on the bottom rung, desperate to reinvent himself, and – at long last – does." Peter Travers of Rolling Stone gave the film a positive review, saying "Eddie Murphy is funny again. Sadly, he lacks the guts to follow through on the cathartic self-satire that gives the film its distinction." Travers praised the "amazing" fat makeup by Rick Baker, but criticized the "safe" fat jokes, and concluded "Only when Murphy stops skewering the compulsive overeater in his nutty professor and targets the sexist pig does the film hit home."
Category:1996 films
Category:Universal films
Category:Imagine Entertainment films
Category:Family
Category:Fantasy
Category:Children
Category:Comedy
Category:Adventure
Category:Action
Category:Drama
Category:1996
Category:Oscar nominated films
Category:Best Makeup and Hairstyling Nominated Films
Category:Films that won the Academy Award for Best Makeup
Category:The Nutty Professor films
Category:Fourth Wall
Category:Rated PG-13
Category:Films starring Eddie Murphy
Category:Eddie Murphy films
Category:Films starring James Coburn
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