Crude comedy is the special of the day on the menu of this rowdy comedy in which Eddie Murphy tackles more than a half-dozen different roles with the aid of makeup effects guru Rick Baker. As in several of his previous films, Murphy dazzles by vividly breathing life into multiple roles infused with varying personas and a touch of good-natured scatology. While the star's performances and Baker's increasingly adroit disguises make it easy to forget that it's Murphy under all that makeup, what can't be masked in Nutty Professor II: The Klumps is the lack of a strong script to carry the day. Focusing on the family of Professor Sherman Klump clearly gives the film more comedic heft (no pun intended) than its predecessor. Yet the film's broad biological functions-obsessed burlesque isn't for more sophisticated viewers and the main plot, involving Sherman's romance of a fellow researcher (Janet Jackson) and the resurrection of Buddy Love, feels more like a subplot than it should. Regardless of the film's unrefined humor and lack of narrative direction, it was a substantial box-office hit. The continuing success of Murphy's Peter Sellers-inspired forays into multiple roles with movies such as this and the far wittier Bowfinger (1999) should guarantee more of the same in the future.