THE NUTTY PROFESSOR (1996) **1/2 Eddie Murphy challenges the legends of Jerry Lewis and Richard Pryor at the same time. It's an audacious undertaking, but he doesn't quite succeed on either count. The film isn't as funny as Lewis' and Eddie isn't as brilliant in multiple roles as Pryor. Doesn't mean it isn't funny (it is) or that Eddie isn't really versatile (he is). That Eddie's probably funniest in drag, doing old ladies, isn't an indictment-he's nearly as impressive as Buddy Love, the man whose testosterone levels are 600 times those of a normal man. But for all of Eddie's posturing and mutation, the most interesting actor is probably Jada Pinkett. Instead of playing down to Eddie, which would have also been interesting, she remains somehow detached from, and above, it all, even while falling for Buddy. It's difficult to tell just how much range she has as the film throws her through a difficult and embarrassing assortment of emotions, but her presence is winsome, serene, and good, somewhere to the left of Sandra Dee and the right of Jenny Agutter in similar stages of development. The special effects are impressive, but like everything else they're deployed primarily in the service of bodily function jokes. It's turf that Eddie has sowed before, with great success (just because something's in bad taste doesn't mean that it can't be funny), but none of it's enough to distract you from the reality that there was a time when Buddy Love himself had nothin' on Eddie.
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