The Golden Child: Paramount Presents Edition - Blu-ray Review

[Michael Scott]

The Golden Child: Paramount Presents Edition



Movie:
Video:
Audio:
Extras:
Final Score:


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Movie
To continue with the Paramount Presents editions from Paramount (durrr) we get the 4th and final Eddie Murphy film today. Except it’s the film that most people weren’t exactly clamoring for, even though it hasn’t been on Blu-ray before (which is rare for Paramount to release a never before released title in the Paramount Presents lineup). Yup, that is Eddie’s worst motion picture of his early career. Murphy infamously trash talked the film himself back when he made Coming to America two years later, and has admitted to it being an epic mistake for one of his first movies. It tried to be a little too Big Trouble in Little China with Eddie Murphy as the main character, but seemed to fail in an epic manner at every turn. The reality of the situation is, The Golden Child is NOT that bad. But it’s not that good either. It suffers from a cheesy plot, bad romance, and weak action with a climax that is about as exciting as watching SNL every since Will Ferrell left.

The plot is about as 80s cheesy as you can get, with a mysterious clan of evil headed by Sardo Numspa (A young Charles Dance) stealing a little boy from Nepal who possesses magical abilities. It seems that this child is the incarnation of a truly perfect human, meant to protect us from the forces of darkness. However, if he’s killed then hell and it’s demons can conquer the earth once more (yeah, we’re heard this before). The forces of light are now forced to send Kee Nang (Charlotte Lewis) to America to find the chosen protector of the child, and use him to save the Golden Child.

Yeah, we already know here this is going. Brendan Fraser…..Eddie Murphy… is said chosen one, but just doesn’t know it yet. Kee Nang intercepts Chandler Jarrell (Murphy) in America as a private detective who hunts missing children and tries to recruit him. Chandler laughs her out of the building thinking she’s crazy, but sooner or later he joins in the fight to save humanity, as he must track down Sado Numspa and save the child before Numspa can figure out a way to kill him.

Watching The Golden Child this many years later, it’s VERY obvious why it didn’t do very well. The elements for a cheesy 80s supernatural action comedy are all there, but there’s no heart behind it. The picture is badly edited with a romance shoved in that feels about as ham fisted as they come. Even the action in the movie is badly edited. You can barely see what’s going on as Eddie Murphy obviously didn’t have major fight training, and the plot is as generic as they come. Find the magic kid, the “one” must come into his own so that he can save said magic kid, and well, lots of Eddie Murphy doing what Eddie Murphy does. Except without the benefit of him behind the writing or director’s chair like some of his better films.

While I may rag on the movie, it DOE S have a nostalgic charm to it that makes The Golden Child “not that bad”. It’s not great mind you, but it has enough 80s kitsch and charm to the production to keep the movie’s head above water. I got a good chuckle watching Murphy desperately try to make the film funnier than it has any right to be, and the product failing so spectacularly despite that. That alone makes it more amusing in and of itself, adding some unintentional comedy to the plot. It fails and succeeds at the same time you might say.




Rating:

Rated PG-13 by the MPAA



Video:

The 1.85:1 framed AVC encode is top notch, as Paramount seems to have done a great job remastering the film. I say this with every Blu-ray “Paramount Presents” title, but I really wish they had used this master to put out a 4K UHD release. The Blu-ray looks utterly amazing with the bright golden shades and red hues throughout, and I can only imagine what this would look like in 4K. Well, either way, the Blu-ray is top notch, showing tons of details that I had never seen before (I had to pull up my old DVD to compare and it’s a night and day difference). The transfer handles the dark shadowing world in Nepal with ease, never introducing major crush or artifacting, and showing off tons of shadow details. Blacks are deep and inky, while the grain structure is still intact, with no major swarming or uptick in grain during the dark shots. Honestly, I almost rated this 5/5, but there are a couple of scenes that look a little rougher around the edges (usually in Nepal), but otherwise this is a fantastic release.





Audio:

Being that this is a supernatural action movie (with some comedy of course) you can be sure that the resulting 5.1 Dolby TrueHD track is quite robust and rewarding to listen to. The action oriented mix is crystal clear with great vocals, good surround support and a surprising amount of bass when compared to other similar films of it’s era. There’s not any real major gun play, but fisticuffs handle the weight appropriately, and the surrounds are never at a loss for content (especially when Eddie’s character tools up the biker gang). All around a fantastic mix for the film.







Extras:

• NEW The Making of The Golden Child - Featurette
• Theatrical Trailer
• The Chosen Ones
• Daggers, Design and Demons

Final Score: ​

The Golden Child is the black sheep of early Eddie Murphy and for good reason. While I do love to rag on it, I am still glad that the film makes its way to Blu-ray after this many years, AND that Paramount gave it such great technical merits. The extras are more than a bit slim, but the audio and video are top notch, and the extras slick packaging unique to the Paramount Presents lineup is a nice bonus. I can’t really recommend the film as a great movie, but it’s very nice to finally plug this Blu-ray hole in my Eddie Murphy collection and I’m sure many others feel the same way. Check it out for some 80s nostalgic vibes.


Technical Specifications:

Starring: Eddie Murphy, Charlotte Lewis, Victor Wong, Randall Cobb, James Hong
Directed by: Michael Ritchie
Written by: Dennis Feldman
Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1 AVC
Audio: English: Dolby TrueHD 5.1, French, German, Japanese DD 2.0
Subtitles: English, English SDH, German, Japanese, French
Studio: Paramount
Rated: PG-13
Runtime: 94 minutes
Blu-Ray Release December 1st, 2020

Recommendation: Check it Out

 

[tripplej]

Thanks for the review. I don't remember this one as well as the others. I might have blocked it from my memory! lol.

Will revisit it later.