Overall, I think Another 48 Hours is the victim of bad timing and lazy sequelitis, sequelitis defined as the tendency for a well-received original to spawn inferior sequels.
Part of the problem is that Another 48 Hours was put into production just after Eddie Murphy's best movie work - from 1982's 48 Hours through to 1988's Coming To America - had ended. Unfortunately, the realization that Eddie Murphy's best movie work was already behind him wasn't a notion people fully realized back in 1990, hindsight being 20/20, etc.
With the first 48 Hours movie in 1982, Murphy was riding the wave to stardom. He was the hottest comedian on tv via his classic Saturday Night Live characters. His comedy album Comedian was selling like hotcakes. His appearance in 48 Hours cemented his stardom. He deserved every bit of it from where I sat. Eddie Murphy in the early 1980's was hilarious.
48 Hours was an entertaining movie. The pairing of Nolte and Murphy felt new and fresh. There had been previous crime dramas set in San Francisco, but director Walter Hill utilized the city to good effect. The secondary cast were stocked with effective character actors turning in memorable performances even when limited to only a few scenes or a fairly minimal amount of screentime. Good action scenes. A violent, gritty movie that one could buy into because for the most part the action scenes and characters were grounded in realism enough to where the viewer wasn't overly busy thinking about plot holes or reacting to scenes with an attitude of 'this kind of stuff only happens in the movies'. On top of it all, Eddie Murphy was at the top of his game as the wisecracking convict, making audiences belly laugh out loud in theaters coast to coast.
Eight years on, Murphy's career was successful to the point that he was calling the shots in terms of script approval, camera angles screenplay development and a host of other moviemaking aspects that he hadn't when he was making the first 48 Hours. With his earlier movies, Murphy merely had to show up and be funny. By the time Another 48 Hours was being made, Murphy had the stature in the industry to expect and demand approval for virtually all aspects of a film he was involved in. Unfortunately, by the time the 1980's ended, Murphy was no longer merely content with being funny onscreen. Murphy wanted to be taken as seriously as a tough guy action figure and a romantic male lead capable of dramatic acting as he was a comedian. And therein lies the downward trajectory of Murphy's movie career, which began with 1989's Harlem Nights and followed through Another 48 Hours and beyond to Boomerang, Vampire In Brooklyn and the like: the rationale that because Eddie Murphy was highly entertaining and lucrative in comedic roles he would therefore be as much in other types of roles.
On paper, seemingly the major ingredients for a decent sequel to 48 Hours were there. Murphy and Nolte returned to reprise their roles. Director Walter Hill also came back. For me, the problem was one general to most movie sequels, where the sequel figures it has to go bigger in all aspects to be better than the original. Thus, Another 48 Hours has more violence, more gunshots, more bloody squibs, more action scenes (featuring plenty of explosions - funny, the first 48 Hours got by without showing any). What Another 48 Hours doesn't have is a secondary character that proves either as menacing, endearing, empathetic or as memorable as the original movie. Nor does Another 48 Hours have a plot as believable (or even a plot one can easily follow) as the first movie.
Lastly, with Another 48 Hours, the sequel didn't have the comedic newness of both Murphy and Nolte as screen partners nor Murphy in general...the comedy material simply wasn't there in Another 48 Hours and Murphy came across like he thought he no longer had to try particularly hard onscreen for laughs. I'd also be remiss in not pointing out that Another 48 Hours is basically a beat-for-beat remake of the first 48 Hours re: plot structure. All of which left me with the impression of Another 48 Hours being paradoxically both lazy and overblown. Intentionally overblown in the stunt and action department perhaps in an attempt to distract from the fact that, in the end, Another 48 Hours has nothing new to offer that the first movie hadn't already served up much, much better - in a far simpler, effective and funny way - the first time around.
Part of the problem is that Another 48 Hours was put into production just after Eddie Murphy's best movie work - from 1982's 48 Hours through to 1988's Coming To America - had ended. Unfortunately, the realization that Eddie Murphy's best movie work was already behind him wasn't a notion people fully realized back in 1990, hindsight being 20/20, etc.
With the first 48 Hours movie in 1982, Murphy was riding the wave to stardom. He was the hottest comedian on tv via his classic Saturday Night Live characters. His comedy album Comedian was selling like hotcakes. His appearance in 48 Hours cemented his stardom. He deserved every bit of it from where I sat. Eddie Murphy in the early 1980's was hilarious.
48 Hours was an entertaining movie. The pairing of Nolte and Murphy felt new and fresh. There had been previous crime dramas set in San Francisco, but director Walter Hill utilized the city to good effect. The secondary cast were stocked with effective character actors turning in memorable performances even when limited to only a few scenes or a fairly minimal amount of screentime. Good action scenes. A violent, gritty movie that one could buy into because for the most part the action scenes and characters were grounded in realism enough to where the viewer wasn't overly busy thinking about plot holes or reacting to scenes with an attitude of 'this kind of stuff only happens in the movies'. On top of it all, Eddie Murphy was at the top of his game as the wisecracking convict, making audiences belly laugh out loud in theaters coast to coast.
Eight years on, Murphy's career was successful to the point that he was calling the shots in terms of script approval, camera angles screenplay development and a host of other moviemaking aspects that he hadn't when he was making the first 48 Hours. With his earlier movies, Murphy merely had to show up and be funny. By the time Another 48 Hours was being made, Murphy had the stature in the industry to expect and demand approval for virtually all aspects of a film he was involved in. Unfortunately, by the time the 1980's ended, Murphy was no longer merely content with being funny onscreen. Murphy wanted to be taken as seriously as a tough guy action figure and a romantic male lead capable of dramatic acting as he was a comedian. And therein lies the downward trajectory of Murphy's movie career, which began with 1989's Harlem Nights and followed through Another 48 Hours and beyond to Boomerang, Vampire In Brooklyn and the like: the rationale that because Eddie Murphy was highly entertaining and lucrative in comedic roles he would therefore be as much in other types of roles.
On paper, seemingly the major ingredients for a decent sequel to 48 Hours were there. Murphy and Nolte returned to reprise their roles. Director Walter Hill also came back. For me, the problem was one general to most movie sequels, where the sequel figures it has to go bigger in all aspects to be better than the original. Thus, Another 48 Hours has more violence, more gunshots, more bloody squibs, more action scenes (featuring plenty of explosions - funny, the first 48 Hours got by without showing any). What Another 48 Hours doesn't have is a secondary character that proves either as menacing, endearing, empathetic or as memorable as the original movie. Nor does Another 48 Hours have a plot as believable (or even a plot one can easily follow) as the first movie.
Lastly, with Another 48 Hours, the sequel didn't have the comedic newness of both Murphy and Nolte as screen partners nor Murphy in general...the comedy material simply wasn't there in Another 48 Hours and Murphy came across like he thought he no longer had to try particularly hard onscreen for laughs. I'd also be remiss in not pointing out that Another 48 Hours is basically a beat-for-beat remake of the first 48 Hours re: plot structure. All of which left me with the impression of Another 48 Hours being paradoxically both lazy and overblown. Intentionally overblown in the stunt and action department perhaps in an attempt to distract from the fact that, in the end, Another 48 Hours has nothing new to offer that the first movie hadn't already served up much, much better - in a far simpler, effective and funny way - the first time around.
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