The Nutty Professor (2008/Animated aka Nutty Professor 2: Facing The Fear/Genius DVD)
Picture:
C+ Sound: C Extras: C Feature: C
After two
Eddie Murphy remakes and counting, you would have though that would be the end
of any other versions of the original Jerry Lewis Nutty Professor from 1963, but Animation Director Paul Taylor and
Logan McPherson took the chance to make it his first feature and The Nutty Professor (2008 aka Nutty Professor 2: Facing The Fear did
not pan pout very well. A straight-to-DVD
affair, this could have been dubbed Nutty
Professor: The Next Generation, but maybe Murphy and Universal thought of
that first?
We get a
boy inventor/genius who watches all of his creations backfire, echoing his lost
life. Lewis himself supplies the adult
voices, while Drake Bell (among other voices) supplies the lines for a young
clone of the original character lewis played live action in 1963 and are joined
by Andrew Francis, Tabitha St. Germain, Britt Irvin, Andrew Francis, Brian
Drummond and Danielle Lewis, but the Evan Spiliotopoulos penned screenplay (he
also penned the English version of The
Blue Elephant, reviewed elsewhere on this site) just never works. It is not that funny, child safe at best and
feels instead like a pale attempt to be the far superior Meet The Robinsons form Disney/Pixar. Maybe it will get some kind of cult following
(and know we like Lewis’ work) but it is an out o0f nowhere disappointment.
That
extends to the playback. The anamorphically
enhanced 1.78 X 1 image looks like an older HD transfer with soft-looking
animation and color limits that show they did not have the best CG tools at
their disposal. Color can also be
limited and the animation is only so impressive. The Dolby Digital5.1 mix harsh, the only option
here despite the end credits claiming “Dolby Surround” (read old Pro Logic) as
the idea of anything beyond mono surrounds sounds like an afterthought and we
warn you to not turn up your volume too much and beware if you actually get
this disc.
Extras include
a character storyboard gallery and making of featurette entitled The Science Of Animating The Nutty Professor.
- Nicholas Sheffo
