Rating summary

Movie		2.0
Video		4.0
Audio		3.5
Extras		1.0
Overall		2.5

The Golden Child Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Martin Liebman December 4, 2020

The Eddie Murphy story will invariably contain mention of The Golden Child, but more than likely in a negative context. As Murphy was starring in hit after hit in the 1980s -- movies like Beverly Hills Cop, Coming to America, Trading Places, and 48 Hrs. solidifying his big-screen star -- he fumbled badly with Director Michael Ritchie's (The Bad News Bears, Fletch) 1986 stinker which sees Murphy lose most of his comedy mojo while battling demons and saving a Tibetan child with magical powers in a slow, stale, and at times sadistically underwhelming film.

Chandler Jarrell (Murphy) is an expert in finding missing children. When he appears on a TV interview and forcefully demands the camera remain on him and the segment's focus on the missing child he’s been charged to find, he catches the attention of the mysterious Kee Nang (Charlotte Lewis) who meets with him and reveals that she believes his destiny is to find the missing “Golden Child,” a youngster with supernatural powers who was recently kidnapped in Tibet. Jarrell reluctantly joins the hunt only to find himself facing an impossible task against a seemingly unstoppable foe (Charles Dance) who is in league with much darker powers than garden-variety kidnappers.

Eddie Murphy is an actor of considerable talent but he's unable to lift a movie built on such a wretched script and saddled by such poor editing as this. The film robs him of most any effort to shine in his comfort zone, leaving him with a cringe-worthy joke here and there in the middle of an increasingly convoluted plot that comes to involve demonic forces, a dagger, and dreariness as the movie drags along. As the plot develops and "thickens," the film grows ever more cumbersome. The movie reaches a breaking point relatively early and only continues to burden itself with ever more bizarre turns and a directionally impaired forward movement that ultimately just stalls about halfway through. Even a change of scenery to Tibet can't help the movie, and its blend of flat action, stale humor, wayward dialogue, and crude plot developments leave the picture suffocating for much of its runtime.

Sadly, the support elements don't work either. The humor, as mentioned, never hits and the action is tepid at best and does little to add any real excitement to the movie, in part because the choreography stinks and in part because the actors just don't put any real heart into it. It seems like Murphy realized early on that the movie was going nowhere and decided to take a mental vacation because he appears to sleepwalk through nearly the whole thing. And who can blame him? In all honesty he's terribly miscast here, not because he's a poor actor -- quite the contrary -- but because the movie doesn't give him room to work at his best. It's a monotonous performance and even in the romance side story Murphy and Lewis fail to find any sparks. There's no chemistry between them and they merely go through the scripted emotions rather than find any true soulful connection. Once the film reaches its climax, when Murphy is battling a special effect demon, it seems everyone, audience probably included, has checked out.

The Golden Child Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Paramount's work on The Golden Child does not reach perfection as do some of its more recent catalogue releases, but this is a solid enough effort in total. The picture enjoys adequate sharpness though there are many softer shots scattered throughout. Grain is fine but sometimes looks a little more mesh-y and inorganic rather than smooth and true. Fine details hold serve, generally, though with some mixed-bag results. Never is the picture purely filmic and tack-sharp, leaving some faces a little flatter than ideal. Conversely, colors are more than satisfying. The picture offers a solid, well-rounded palette that enjoys steadiness across the entire spectrum, revealing intense clothing tones and support hues against urban and natural backgrounds across the various locations seen in the film. Colors are steady, pleasing to the eye, and of neutral contrast; there's no push too warm or to faint. Skin tones are delightful and black levels are terrific; there's a natural depth to shadows and clothes that is probably the image's finest feature. There are no egregious source wear signs and the encode reveals no compression artifacts. It may not be a Blu-ray masterpiece, but there's enough here to satisfy fans.

The Golden Child Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Paramount utilizes the studio's standby Dolby TrueHD 5.1 lossless encode for The Golden Child, and the results are satisfying all-around. The 80s synth soundtrack delivers impressive detail with a wide-ranging sound elements across the full tonal range spectrum, from sharp highs to solid lows. It's presented with width and nice balance across the back, too, pleasantly enveloping the listener for a satisfying time travel back to the 1980s and while perhaps not one of the decade's most iconic scores, certainly one well representative of it. While most action and sound effects find good stage presence and placement, quality clarity and full bodied depth, a few examples ring a bit flatter than ideal; a fight sequence in chapter eight, with a Metal music video playing on a TV in the background, features hits, punches, and other effects sounding shallow and flat. Otherwise, there's not much of a break in the illusion, though to be sure the original elements don't exactly offer the world's most efficient and detailed listening experience on par with today's more finely engineered multichannel sound events. But modest environmental detail helps to carry a number of scenes and pull the listener into the world while dialogue is clear and pure in both positioning and prioritization.

The Golden Child Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

The Golden Child includes two supplements: a two-part featurette and a trailer. This release is the 11th in the "Paramount Presents" line and includes the slipcover with fold-open poster artwork, in this case not really different from the outside print beyond background color and poster print elements. The Blu-ray case is transparent and there is inner print artwork as well as a filmmaker quote. A digital copy code is included with purchase. However, a DVD copy is not.

• The Making of The Golden Child (1080p): This two part feature includes The Chosen Ones (6:48), looking at the script, plot, character details, performances, and more; and Daggers, Design and Demons (6:37), a piece exploring production design, shooting locations, costumes, stunt work, special effects, and more.
• Theatrical Trailer (480i, 2:01).

The Golden Child Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Eddie Murphy may have been Hollywood' "golden child" in the 1980s but The Golden Child is a stain on an otherwise brilliant decade of work. Murphy would star in more stinkers in the coming years, including Norbit and The Adventures of Pluto Nash to name two of his most infamous films. While those are subjectively (and probably objectively) worse than this, The Golden Child came at a time when Murphy was a can't miss bet whose films always met or exceeded expectations. But not this one. It's barely watchable, particularly in the wake of watching some of his best films that Paramount recently released, like Beverly Hills Cop, Coming to America, and Trading Places. This Blu-ray, part of the "Paramount Presents" line, delivers solid enough video and audio. Extras are limited to a single featurette and a trailer. For fans and collectors only.