Big Momma's House stars Martin Lawrence, whose off-screen antics don't exactly inspire the warm-and-fuzzies (this is the project for which he tried to sweat the pounds off and wound up in a coma; previous to that, claiming temporary insanity, he waved a handgun around on the L.A. freeway), in the first part to showcase his sweet side. Essentially Stakeout if the Richard Dreyfuss character donned Aunt Jemima gear, the movie features the requisite "master of disguise" government agent whom, with his jittery partner (Paul Giamatti), is assigned to watch over the house of one Big Momma (Ella Mitchell), for it has been deduced that Sherry, her niece (Nia Long; in the immortal words of Lawrence himself: "Damn you fine!"), a suspected accomplice in a robbery that landed her now escaped-convict boyfriend in prison, will crash there.

When Big Momma leaves unexpectedly, natch, Lawrence's Malcolm dresses up just like her, perfects his sassy lady voice, and successfully deceives Sherry when she arrives. That Big Momma's entire neighbourhood is fooled by this dicey get-up as well is very casually dismissed; logic has always seemed to flare up and die upon entering the atmosphere of a Martin Lawrence opus. Still, I've got to give Big Momma's House props for having its big momma heart in the right place. I haven't seen a movie this enjoyable despite utter laughlessness and formulaic tendencies since the eighties--it transported me back to the trashy comedies of my youth, the Pay-TV fillers that distracted me from homework. I could've gone without seeing rotund Mitchell in the buff, mind you, especially after hearing her diarrheic attack.

If Big Momma's House is guilty of borrowing a conceit from many an Eddie Murphy flick, i.e. casting its African American lead in multiple roles via the use of prosthetics (Lawrence also appears as a Chinese gambler at the beginning of Big Momma's House), Murphy's Nutty Professor II: The Klumps highlights the fundamental pointlessness of the notion several times over. Eddie Murphy as an entire family plus one turns a witless succession of fart jokes and minstrel show stereotypes into an almost prohibitively expensive parade of same. Murphy is too agile a performer for the Klumps (he could play all five of them in his sleep), and there's something more than a tad ghoulish about his insistence on disappearing beneath padding in film after film.

In Nutty Professor II, obese, engaged (to fellow labcoat Denise Gaines (Janet Jackson--you fine, too!)) Sherman Klump extrapolates his thin, mischievous alter ego Buddy Love from his DNA, but then his I.Q. plummets, as if Buddy were a genetic imperative. Meanwhile, Buddy has sprung loose from his test tube and is planning to steal an age-reversal formula that is currently in the hands--well, refrigerator--of Cletus Klump, Sherman's cantankerous father. Meanwhile, Sherman is developing a potion to shrink or enlarge carbon-based lifeforms, and his test subject, which I'm sure you've heard all about by now, is a rather libidinous hamster. (Funnier than the animal's act of sodomizing Sherman's boss is the Jurassic Park-esque tone of it.)

That's a lot of meanwhiles. There's never a clear goal for this follow-up: it can't be a rehash of the first film; on the other hand, it needs a reason to retain the words "Nutty Professor" in its title. It also has to significantly include Sherman's crude, crass family, because they were such a hit with audiences during their few scenes in the original. (I have this theory: if you're left wanting more, you've had just enough. This at least holds true of buffet dinners and Urkel.) Such complications force the four credited screenwriters to overreach and overachieve; it's an admirably daffy sequel, but, frankly, watching it hurts like an ice cream headache after a while.

The Special Edition DVDs of each are more difficult to distinguish: did one studio steal the blueprints of the other? In fact, they are spectacularly similar discs, right down to their menus and bonus time-lapse footage, shot from identical angles of Eddie and Martin in the make-up chair. In terms of audio-video quality, they both boast gorgeous, 1.85:1 anamorphic widescreen transfers (although Big Momma's House's is THX approved, and it does look a bit better compressed than Nutty Professor II's) with unfailingly candy-bright colours and outstanding definition (but Big Momma's House has the edge here, too).

Nutty Professor II is the clear winner in a sound face-off. Its Dolby Digital 5.1 mix employs the surrounds to better effect than most comedies, period, and that hamster rape has hilariously kickin' bass--nothing approaching Jurassic Park's, mind you. Big Momma's House has clear, crisp DD 5.1 sound that just doesn't go the extra mile in terms of engineering.

Big Momma's House features a low-key commentary by producer David Friendly and director Raja Gosnell, and the latter's pinched voice takes a little getting used to; the topic of most interest on this track is the current trend toward fast-tracking motion pictures to meet summer release dates. It happened to X-Men and it happened to Big Momma's House. Gosnell also chimes in over two wisely deleted scenes (an animated title sequence and the oft-mentioned prison break). Next up is a genuinely informative making-of, "Building Big Momma's House"--it is here that we see Lawrence transformed into a ringer for Mitchell, and we also hear from Mitchell herself, who wore a resculpted nose to better match Lawrence. ("Momma never said there'd be days like these," she exclaims during the application of her false face.)

Then we have a make-up test in which Lawrence improvises a cooking sketch while wearing a Big Momma prototype suit. Thank goodness he took the cracking voice down a notch--Big Momma is well past puberty! Lastly, amusing outtakes and bloopers, videos for Lil Bow Wow's "Bounce with Me" and "I've Got to Have It" by Jumaine Dupri with NAS and Monica (the latter is overly reliant on a sample from Peter Gabriel's "Sledge Hammer"), a trailer and TV spots for Big Momma's House, and a preview of Me, Myself & Irene.

The Nutty Professor II Collector's DVD houses a commentary by director Peter Segal that's anything but low-key. He's less smug in an audio-only chat with producer Brian Grazer, but for whatever reason, that commentary doesn't run the length of the film. Here, too, there is a deleted scene (the recognizably superfluous "The House Fantasy"), the uncut restaurant sequence (I've got to say, it's a triumph of special effects camerawork), a blooper reel, a music video (Janet Jackson's vertically letterboxed "Doesn't Really Matter"), clips of Eddie getting turned into Cletus and Ernie, and Nuttys I (under "Recommendations") & II trailers. Additional extras: a storyboard-to-film comparison; cast/crew bios; and DVD-ROM links to the web and production notes.-Bill Chambers