Eddie Murphy’s The Nutty Professor Turns Weight Loss Into Comedy Gold

Eddie Murphy plays every character in The Nutty Professor, and that is the whole trick. Sherman Klump is a 400-pound professor at Wellman College who wants to lose weight. One swig of his fat-reducing serum turns him into Buddy Love, a fast-talking, pumped-down Don Juan. The film asks you to spend 95 minutes watching Murphy go from a gentle giant to a sleazy cad and back again. It is a comedy built on a single transformation, and it mostly works.

Trailer, via Universal Pictures At Home.

Eddie Murphy’s Double Act

Murphy plays seven people here: Sherman, Buddy Love, Lance Perkins, Papa Klump, Mama Klump and Grandma Klump. That is a lot of hats, and he sells them all. Buddy Love is the film’s comic engine, a man of excess — excessive confidence, excessive appetite, and a complete lack of guilt. The joke depends on Murphy’s ability to switch between kindness and cruelty without warning, and he does it well enough that the laughs land even when the setup is predictable.

The film’s strongest scenes are the ones that let Buddy run loose. Reggie Warrington, played by Dave Chappelle, is the comic target who gets destroyed in a club, and the revenge scene that follows is a high point. The transformation scenes are also well done, with the weight loss taking seconds rather than minutes on screen. The movie knows its own premise, and it leans into the absurdity of it.

Carla Purty and the Rest of the Cast

Jada Pinkett Smith plays Carla Purty, the chemistry graduate who sets the whole plot in motion. She is the object of Sherman’s affection, and her disgust when Buddy cheats on her is the emotional core of the story. The rest of the cast fills out the comedy. James Coburn plays Harlan Hartley, the wealthy businessman who sponsors the serum. Larry Miller plays Dean Richmond. Dave Chappelle’s Reggie Warrington is the comic relief who gets treated badly. John Ales plays Jason, Sherman’s lab assistant. The film does not waste these people, and they get funny moments when the plot calls for them.

The Sequel’s Shadow

The Nutty Professor was a success when it came out. It won Best Makeup at the 69th Academy Awards. It also set up a sequel, Nutty Professor II: The Klumps, which came out in 2000. That film is separate from this review, but the legacy of The Nutty Professor is clear: the formula was good enough to repeat.

Weak Links

The film is not without its rough spots. The romance between Sherman and Carla feels thin next to the comedy. Carla’s character is mostly a prize to be won, and her disgust at Buddy’s behavior is more of a plot point than a character moment. The film also leans on its own absurdist humor to the point where some of the jokes wear thin. The idea of Buddy’s testosterone levels driving his behavior is a good one, but the film does not develop it fully before moving on to the next gag.

The film’s setup — Sherman is made fun of for his weight, and he decides to test his serum on himself — is simple. It works because Murphy sells the shame and the relief in equal measure. But the film never quite gets to the emotional payoff that a story about weight and identity could have reached. Instead it keeps returning to Buddy’s excesses, which are funny but not always deep.

A Simple Premise, Well Executed

The Nutty Professor is a remake of a 1963 film, and it plays the same trick as the original. A fat man becomes a handsome one, and the handsome one is not always a better version of himself. The film’s strength is Murphy’s range, and its weakness is that it never quite commits to its own emotional stakes. It is a funny film, but it is a funny film with a simple moral: the world loves a handsome man, and the handsome man often does not deserve it.

The film is not a masterpiece, but it is a competent comedy with a strong lead performance. The transformation jokes land, the revenge scene works, and the romance stays thin. It is the kind of film that finds its audience with the right crowd, and it is the kind of film that forgets itself when the lights come up.

“Inside Sherman Klump, a party animal is about to break out.”

That tagline says it all. The film knows exactly what it is, and it delivers on that promise.

Key Facts

• Title: The Nutty Professor
• Director: Tom Shadyac
• Writer: Barry W. Blaustein, David Sheffield, Steve Oedekerk, Tom Shadyac, Jeffrey Price, Peter S. Seaman
• Runtime: 95 minutes
• Release date: June 28, 1996
• Score: 6.2/10

1996 · comedy · Dave Chappelle · Eddie Murphy · remake