Metacritic reviews

And the movie succeeds in two different ways: It's sweet and good-hearted, and then again it's raucous slapstick and bathroom humor. I liked both parts.

Eddie Murphy is funny again. Sadly, he lacks the guts to follow through on the cathartic self-satire that gives the film its distinction.

Without ever posing a serious challenge to the original, the new Nutty Professor is much more respectful of its source and funnier than I'd anticipated.

This is good, seamless comedy, even if it's not terribly sophisticated.

The Nutty Professor aims for guffaws at the lowest level -- anyone with a double-digit IQ will get every joke. Whether you laugh at them or not is often more of a matter of taste than a question of having a sense of humor.

Mr. Murphy proves himself a surprisingly strong actor here, playing Sherman with sweetness and poignancy, not to mention loads of funny weight-related humor.

Murphy is wonderful -- I wouldn't begrudge him an Oscar nomination -- but The Nutty Professor is a mess.

Be that as it may, the movie offers the uplifting news bulletin that life is not about being happy with how much you weigh but with what kind of person you are. This is where the movie starts getting sloppy.

Arguably better than the last five Eddie Murphy films taken together, The Nutty Professor still seems to be playing down to its audience much of the time, though you'd never know it to hear the gales of laughter erupting at the screening I attended.

The film is otherwise plastic; the supporting players stink and a few too many fart jokes exist where wit belonged.