Funny Business By Desson Howe Washington Post Staff Writer Friday, May 5, 2000

Janet Jackson and Eddie Murphy in "Nutty Professor II: The Klumps." (Universal)

Please restrict whooping, cheering and the firing of handguns into the air to a minimum.

There's even better news: This could be another great Jim Carrey season. In the Farrelly Brothers' "Me Myself and Irene" (June 23), he plays a sweet-natured cop who has this other, uh, crazy personality.

Unfortunately, both of them are in love with Renee Zellweger. Looks like Carrey and his "special friend" are going to cackle all the way to the bank. And speaking of multiple personalities, Eddie Murphy might shell the July 28 competition with "Nutty Professor II: The Klumps," in which he plays the tubby, genial professor who's in constant conflict with his alter-ego, Buddy Love.

Another hot prospect is "Road Trip" (May 19), starring Breckin Meyer, Seann William Scott, Fred Ward and MTV star Tom Green. The movie could score huge with the teen-to-twenties market, thanks to slapstick humor, bawdy antics and such sight gags as Green chomping on rodents.

Woody Allen, traditionally the tweedy intellectual of fall, is yukking it up this summer with "Small Time Crooks," his first project with Steven Spielberg's DreamWorks. The comedy, which opens May 19, is a bank-heist caper with the usual big ensemble, including Hugh Grant. Speaking of Hugh, it's time for Elizabeth Hurley to play the devil. She's Satan, with legs, in "Bedazzled" (Aug. 11), a remake of the Dudley Moore-Peter Cook 1967 comedy classic, in which she cuts a soul-for-pleasure deal with Brendan Fraser.

Some other comic possibilities: