The Golden Child (1986)

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nTitle: The Golden Child (1986)

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nDirector: Michael Ritchie

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nCast:  Eddie Murphy,nCharles Dance, Charlotte Lewis, Victor Wong, James Hong, Randall Tex Cobb

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nReview:

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nIt is said that every thousand generations, a perfect childnis born and that this child will come to free us from ourselves. This magicalnchild is supposed to bring compassion to humanity. If for whatever reason, thenkid dies, then all hope and compassion will disappear from the world, and the worldnwill turn into hell itself, literally. This is the premise for MichaelnRitchie’s The Golden Child, an Eddie Murphy vehicle that was released onto thenworld right after Eddie Murphy had completed his work on Beverly Hills Copn(1984), in other words, when his fame was really starting to take off. For anmoment there, Murphy was on fire in theaters making people laugh with one greatncomedy after another. I’m talking he was making films like Trading Placesn(1983), 48 Hrs. (1982) and Beverly Hills Cop II (1987). If you ask me, Murphyngot as high as he was going to go in terms of comedy and quality with JohnnLandis’s super comedy Coming to America (1988); now there’s a funny EddienMurphy movie! After that, he’d continue making movies, but he never reached thensuccess or levels of funny he reached during his golden years; the 80’s. Butnamongst all those funny movies he made during the 80’s, one was a stinker in mynbook, and that was The Golden Child. nLet’s find out why shall we?

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nSo yeah, there’s a magical kid who’s kind of like the secondncoming of Christ or something, he’s been kidnapped from his Buddhist temple bynthis bad guy called ‘Sardo Numpsa’. You see old Sardo wants to make the kidndrink some blood in order to corrupt his pure body. Then he wants to kill thenkid so he won’t bring goodness to the world or something like that. In comesnChandler Jarrell (Murphy) a private detective who specializes in missingnchildren cases. He doesn’t know it yet, but he is “the chosen one”, destined tonsave and protect The Golden Child. Will his wise ass remarks get in the way ofnsaving The Golden Child?
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nThe Golden Child is one of these movies that was originallynintended to be one kind of a film, and ended up being another. At one point,nthis film was going to be a serious adventure film starring Mel Gibson. Even cooler,nit was going to be directed by John Carpenter! Imagine that? Mel Gibson passingnup this project was fine by me because instead he went and did Lethal Weaponn(1987), a far more memorable film. Interesting thing about Carpenter’sninvolvement with The Golden Child is that he passed on it but then went on tondirect Big Trouble in Little China (1986), a film that also dealt with Chinesenmysticism, and also starred James Hong, Victor Wong and Peter Kwong. I guessnCarpenter decided to go and do his own Chinese mysticism flick; his way. Andnthank the movie gods for that! Otherwise we would have never had a Big TroublenIn Little China! So suddenly we had two studios making similar films, who wasngoing to beat who to premiere day? Story goes that Big Trouble in Little Chinanwas rushed through post production in order to premiere before The GoldennChild! Michael Ritchie was the guy who ended up directing The Golden Child;nRitchie’s a director who mostly specialized in directing comedies. He’s thendirector behind such comedy classics as The Bad News Bears (1976), Fletchn(1985), Wild Cats (1986) and Fletch Lives! (1989), so in a way, it makesnperfect sense that he’s the guy who ended up behind the cameras.

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nWhen Mel Gibson passed on the role of Chandler Jarrell, thenproducers opted to put Murphy in the starring role and had the script rewrittennin order to turn it into a comedy. So what we have here ladies and gentlemen isnone of those movies where everybody is dead serious, except for the main starnwho spends the whole film reacting to everything with a funny remark. Eddie Murphy literally replies with a funnynremark to everything in this movie! So the comedy element of the film restsnentirely on the shoulders of Eddie Murphy. Gotta admit he is one of the thingsnthat makes this movie watchable. The film might feel pointless and silly, butnit had Eddie Murphy back when he was still a funny man, not the softy he’snbecome recently. Is there some sort of contract that prohibits Murphy fromnmaking films with some guts to them? All he makes now are freaking familyncomedies! So anyhow, it’s Murphy’s funny one liners that make this one bearablenin my book.  

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nThis movie gets lambasted by reviewers and criticsneverywhere, perhaps unfairly I might add. There’s this hive like mentality tonimmediately hate Eddie Murphy and everything he does, and I actually understandnit because of the terrible films he currently makes, but once upon a time,nMurphy was at the top of his game. He had an edge, he was actually funny. Whatnhappened to him that changed his persona so drastically? I don’t know, perhapsnhe became a dad and started seeing things differently? I don’t hate the Murphy’snold films; I find his early stuff truly hilarious. Try watching Trading Placesn(1983) and not laughing. I dare ya! I double dare ya! True, The Golden Child isnnot his brightest day in the sun, but hey, it’s got some fun things about it.nFor example, there’s this scene in the film that’s a flat out homage to The 36^thnChamber of Shaolin (1978) but with Murphy saying jokes as he passes the tests.nWe get two stop motion animated creatures, a nhalf snake, half human lady, and a demon from hell that’s really weirdnlooking in design, I don’t know what the inspiration was for that creature.  In terms of mood, they were obviously goingnfor a mix between 36^th Chamber of Shaolin and Indiana Jones and thenTemple of Doom (1984), there’s this whole subplot about finding a magicalndagger that reminded me of Indy searching for that idol. Overall, The GoldennChild feels like a pointless movie that simply goes through thenmotions without any real impact. Still, if you want to see every film Murphynhas made, there are far worse film on his repertoire for you to explore.

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nRating: 2 out of 5 

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