Nutty Professor II – The Klumps (HD-DVD)
Picture:
B+ Sound: B+ Extras: D Film: D
No mater
how bad the Eddie Murphy remake of Jerry Lewis’ Nutty Professor was, it was a hit and that led to the inevitable,
unsatisfying, by-the-numbers, highly expected sequel. Peter Segal’s Nutty Professor II – The Klumps (2000) manages to be more of the
same, more inept and more soulless than the first, leaving Murphy to share more
screen time with his most underrated co-star since the 1990s, latex!
Here is what
I thought of the first film on HD-DVD:
http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/5331/The+Nutty+Professor+(1996/HD-DVD)
The new
attraction here was supposed to be Janet Jackson as the female lead, but she is
hardly ever on screen, in what we could call the screenplay’s “co-star
malfunction” wasting her and the audience very badly. Needless to say there was not a third film (and
hopefully never will be) taking four people to write this latest mess, some of
whom (The Weitz Brothers) have definitely gone on to better work. Not even co-star Larry Miller can do anything
to save this from being a total dud.
As is the
case with bad sequels, they hope looking and sounding better than their
predecessor will give the illusion of progress.
The 1080p 1.85 X 1 digital High Definition image looks better than the
first film’s, in part because this looks like a better HD transfer overall,
with the great Dean Semler, A.C.S., A.S.C., replacing Julio Macat as Director
of Photography. Color, depth and detail
are improved, though it cannot save this mess either and is hardly demo
material to boot. This time, the
soundtrack is available in Dolby TrueHD 5.1, which was not the case with the
first film. There is also a serviceable
Dolby Digital Plus 5.1 mix, but the TrueHD is better and is the one improvement
form the first film, which was an early digital entry to begin with. Instead of no extras, Universal has loaded
this disc with a bunch, including outtakes, Segal audio commentary, an extended
scene, a deleted scene, storyboards/final footage section, make-up piece,
interviews with Segal and producer Brian Grazer and Jackson’s Music Video for
the soundtrack hit Doesn’t Really Matter.
Except
for her Video, all the extras show are the anatomy of a disaster. Sure, the film did business, but is this that
popular? We doubt it.
- Nicholas Sheffo
