Welcome to The Morning After, where I share with you what movies I’ve seen over the past week. Below, you will find short reviews of those movies along with a star rating. Full length reviews may come at a later date.

So, here is what I watched this past week:

The Nutty Professor

There was a potentially poignant polemic on the treatment of overweight people in The Nutty Professor, but it was unfortunately subsumed by the far overblown Eddie Murphy who was at his best when playing meek.

The story revolves around an obese university professor and scientist who is on the verge of isolating the genes that cause unnecessary weight gain. When a new teacher (Jada Pinkett Smith) shows up on campus and his attempts to lose weight to impress her fail, he decides to use the limitedly successful formula on himself. He turns into a type of Jekyll and Hyde character with his mild-mannered personality subsumed by an overproduction of testosterone to become what every Murphy archetype has ever been.

The only scene that played with any genuine cinematic success was one early in the film where an insulting comic takes aim at Prof. Clump’s weight, bringing down the house, but embarrassing and hurting him and his date (Smith). The film had a jumping off point there into a film that honestly, while humorously, tackled the issue of body image, insensitivity and self-consciousness, but after that initial impact, the film quickly takes off in a zany, madcap way that almost entirely disavows itself of being any manner of impactful. There are some redeeming qualities, especially the bravura work Murphy employs during his family dinner scenes where he plays five different roles, but those scenes seem almost divorced from the rest of the film.