Her-cu-les, Her-cu-les. Eddie Murphy and The Klumps are back and funnier than ever. In the sequel to the highly successful Nutty Professor, Eddie Murphy plays more roles than the rest of the main cast listed at the Internet Movie Database. He plays not only Sherman Klump, but also Buddy Love, Mama Klump, Papa Klump, Ernie Klump and Grandma Klump - and he plays them all with such hilarious accuracy, it's hard to remember that it's the same person behind the make-up.

With no pre-release buzz other than the slew of commercials innundating our televisions and movie previews, I really didn't know what to expect from The Nutty Professor II. I could have guessed that it would be funny like the original and from the previews, I knew that Sherman's arch-enemy Buddy Love would be back. Well, I was right on both counts. Not only is the Nutty Professor II simply hilarious throughout (save a few points where it seemed as if the writers got a little too carried away), but Buddy Love is back and even more evil and crafty than in the first. While Professor Sherman Klump develops a sort of "fountain of youth" and the college is offered $150 million for the rights, he also decides that he needs to extract the evil Buddy Love from his system through a genetic extraction pioneered by his girlfriend Denice (Janet Jackson). Unfortunately, Buddy somehow is released into a quasi-dog-like person while Sherman has his own problems related to the extraction and his personal life. Needless to say, although it sounds confusion, the plot makes for lots of laughter and when you then factor in the Klump family, a laugh riot is sure to follow.

Written by the original writer of The Nutty Professor and then re-written by the writers of American Pie, there doesn't seem to be many places the film could go wrong, but unfortunately it does. During a couple scenes I was actually not amused and questioned the sheer stupidity of the scene. Most likely these scenes were inserted by the American Pie writers as they seemed to descend to the level of lower humor while the true funny parts of the movie were mostly dialogue based banter.

While the Nutty Professor II: The Klumps is most definitely worth the price of admission, there were some parts that should have been cut out and left on the editing room floor. Nonetheless, the movie was fun and I look forward to seeing it again.

Genres: Comedy
Rated: PG-13
Runtime: 110 minutes
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