Nutty Professor 2 : The Klumps
Small Klumps of laughter, but not much else.
By Christopher Welch

: : : Our Rating : : :

Whoever said the best things in life are free, probably wasn't talking about movies. I had the so called privilege to catch an advanced screening (the day before the movie is actually set to be released) of The Nutty Professor 2: The Klumps, sponsored by a local radio station. All I have to say after sitting through it is that I'm glad I didn't have to pay for it.

I'll admit that I was actually looking forward to seeing this movie. The few actually funny scenes in the original The Nutty Professor were the scenes involving Sherman Klump's loud mouthed, crude, and dysfunctional family. Making a sequel that centered around them sounded like a sure fire comedy hit. Add in Peter Segal the director of the extremely funny Tommy Boy, and you can't miss.

This movie does miss however. As with its predecessor the film does have few genuinely funny scenes, unfortunately they're way to few and far between. Even these rare scenes however are still very infantile, and way too over the top to be really funny. These occasional scenes, and the brilliant make-up work, and fairly cool special effects are the only things that make this movie worth seeing.

The biggest thing this movie suffers from is its juvenile mind set. While we all like the occasional gross out comedy, we can only stomach so much. For most of us that beacon of nastiness, must at least have some semi-witty dialogue, or charming characters, or something. Instead The Klumps relies solely on its bodily function jokes, and nothing else. Watching this film I felt like I was back in Jr. high school again, waiting for someone to show me the latest fowl thing written on the stalls in the boys bathroom. This entire movie comes off as largely immature, and childish. Any minute you have expect one of the characters to call one of the other characters, "Mr. Poopy Pants". This film also fails to reach its obvious target audience (young boys age 11 to 18) as well. I saw the film with my brother who is thirteen, and while he laughed more then I did, still sat there fairly bored, and unentertained throughout most of the movie. In all of this movies immaturity it also tries to be funny by being vulgar, and instead, the humor doesn't really work, and it comes off as just vulgar. We have reached a point in comedies of this sort where everyone feels they have to try too hard to gross people out. Sometimes it works, and its funny other times it doesn't, and its just stupid. Most of the instances in this film, fall into the latter category.

I got to see the movie for free, so I can't be to bitter about it, but given the opportunity I implore you not to waste money on it. The film has its few comedic moments, and the special effects, and make-up are pretty cool, but its definitely not worth your hard earned money to watch something you could just as easily get by going to your nearest middle school, and sneaking inside the boys bathroom. The only real upside, the theater isn't quite as smelly as the boy's room, but the floor is just as nasty.