Along with everyone else, I felt a ripple of static jolt the auditorium. When Murphy shed his prison grays for a sleek Armani suit and began pulling a spunky brand of jive on hard-guy cop Nick Nolte, that ripple became a pulsing current. And about halfway through, during Murphy's triumphant scene -- shaking down the belligerent honchos at a redneck bar -- that current became an indoor lightning storm. Nolte, stalking thugs and throwing his weight around with the physical force of Steve McQueen and the comic blowziness of Wallace Beery, got a healthy share of cheers and laughs. But after the movie the talk was all Eddie Murphy. With the advent of "Nutty Professor II: The Klumps," which opened last weekend to more business than any previous Murphy movie, I went through my file on the actor/comedian and found the notes I took about him during the filming of "48 HRS." I realized again how phenomenal he was from the beginning -- and how often his talent has been misused since. "48 HRS." remains the only Murphy film I'd want to see a second time because it wasn't a drive-he-said star vehicle, but a solidly built movie.

After "48 HRS.," "Trading Places" and "Beverly Hills Cop" (itself almost a "48 HRS." spinoff), Murphy became one of the pivots of our superstar-centered film culture. Executives molded movies around him and catered to his whims. He dominated productions and either worked with weak directors or weakened strong ones. For a while he got by on his comic charisma alone, even in flimsy spectacles like "Coming to America" (1988). By the time he executive-produced, directed, wrote and starred in "Harlem Nights" (1989) -- he gave himself, in all, a half-dozen credits on that one -- he seemed all used up. Murphy's '90s movies were a roll call of disappointments and catastrophes, including "Another 48 HRS.," "Boomerang," "The Distinguished Gentleman," "Beverly Hills Cop III" and "Vampire in Brooklyn."

Then came his comeback with "The Nutty Professor" (1996). Murphy was funny as Professor Sherman Klump, who experiments on himself with a formula that isolates and alters fat genes. But the film was still a half-baked remake of Jerry Lewis' 1963 chef d'oeuvre. Its success was a tribute to Murphy's performance and to the public's desire to see him as a softer, gentler character than the sharpshooters and slicksters of his first decade and a half. Klump is a sensitive soul: His billowing fat makes him look slovenly, but inside he has arrested elegance. He isn't like the other hefty members of his family -- all enacted amusingly by Murphy -- who feel at home in their bulk.

But "The Nutty Professor" was structured as a Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde farce -- and it foundered on the Hyde side. Klump swigged his fat-gene formula and turned into a slender, hopped-up Eddie Murphy: an arrogant opportunist named Buddy Love, who was little more than a walking hard-on, literally overdosing on testosterone. Love was obviously meant to be a parody of Murphy's usual screen image -- in the first "Nutty Professor," Murphy nearly broke the fourth wall when he screamed that he thought Buddy Love was the man people wanted him to be. But all Murphy did to mock himself was yell and laugh louder and louder, and lather on self-love with a turkey baster. "Nutty Professor II: The Klumps" features a frantic attempt to salvage Buddy Love as a viable antagonist: The film genetically splices him with a dog. As a comic inspiration, it's a mutt.

And, overall, the sequel is an out-of-control, elephantine showcase for Murphy's virtuosity: It's a Murphy, Murphy, Murphy, Murphy World. The actor again plays, not just Buddy Love and Sherman Klump, but Sherman's randy-like granny, his proud, combative dad, his perpetually cooing mom, and his bitter (but still supportive) brother. These other Klumps become supporting characters, not mere cameo players -- and that's why the film is such an undeniable crowd-pleaser. Watching the group scenes in three-minute bits on "Oprah" last week, I thought they were hilarious. But in the movie they suffer diminishing returns, because there's no rhythm to the filmmaking, no momentum to the plot and no build to the characterizations. Only as Sherman's doting mom does Murphy provide any emotional payoff.

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