Nutty Professor II: The Klumps

Make no mistake about it, Eddie Murphy is a talented guy. But by watching him perform as many as eight different roles in "Nutty Professor II: The Klumps," you'd probably never guess it.

That's because this lowbrow sequel is such a putrid blast of bad taste that, at times, it's hard to even pay attention to what's happening on the big screen.

And perhaps that shouldn't come as such a huge surprise, considering that the first "Nutty Professor" was outrageous enough — what with its concentration on flatulence gags and other potty humor.

But in content, this film one-ups that one — or maybe that should be "one-downs" it — by putting the emphasis on sexual humor, which includes sexual dysfunction jokes, gags about the sex practices of the elderly and even more horrifyingly, a sexual assault on a human by a mutated animal.

Also, even though warning people ahead of time never stops some from taking young ones to such a film, this is definitely not family fare. If anything, it resembles such recent movies as "Road Trip," at least in spirit and sheer tastelessness. (There is something to be said in its favor; "Nutty II" does pale in comparison to "Scary Movie," which is currently the yardstick for crudity in film.)

This time around, things seem to be looking up for portly Professor Sherman Klump (Murphy). His experimental youth formula appears to work and his beautiful colleague Denise Gaines (musician-turned-actress Janet Jackson) has romantic feelings for him.

Stress the word "seems," since Sherman's evil alter-ego, Buddy Love, is threatening to emerge again, and spoils Sherman's plans to propose to Denise. So Sherman risks his health by "extracting" Buddy's DNA from his system.

Unfortunately, that isn't the end of Sherman's problems. Thanks to a lab mishap, Buddy becomes a flesh-and-blood creature and decides to take his revenge on the good professor by stealing his formula and sabotaging an all-important presentation.

If that's not bad enough, it appears that the drastic "separation" of personalities has left Sherman the worse for the wear, as his intelligence begins dwindling rapidly and Buddy starts exhibiting canine characteristics (his "body" regeneration includes some dog DNA).

Among the film's larger problems is an air of insincerity, thanks to some extremely half-hearted attempts to be sweet — which, of course, come after a long succession of crude jokes.

Maybe that shouldn't come as a surprise, since the team of screenwriters includes Chris and Paul Weitz, whose "American Pie" screenplay suffered from a similar, internal-personality conflict.

Not that Murphy seems to mind. In fact, he seems to be relishing every opportunity to be smarmy, which is a real pity because he also shows he can play several distinctive characters well.

Murphy also has a lot more chemistry with the sweet-faced Jackson than he did with Jada Pinkett Smith in the original film . . . but any promise for the film is buried in layer after layer of crudity.

"Nutty Professor II: The Klumps" is rated PG-13 for extremely crass sexual humor and gags involving bodily functions of both humans and animals, scattered profanity, sex (largely overheard and done for laughs), violence (a fistfight and some mayhem) and use of racial epithets. Running time: 110 minutes.

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E-MAIL: jeff@desnews.com