After his big-screen debut in 48 Hrs., Eddie Murphy quickly skyrocketed to become one of the biggest movie stars of the 1980s, headlining hit after hit after hit. At the start of the next decade, Murphy returned to the role that launched him with the sequel Another 48 Hrs. Unfortunately, the follow-up was not as well-received as the original had been.

Murphy’s star power had begun to dim by the end of the ’80s. Released the prior year, his directorial debut Harlem Nights was torn to shreds by critics and underperformed at the box office. Following that disappointment, a big-budget summer sequel to one of his earlier successes surely looked like exactly the rebound he needed at that moment. Sadly, although Another 48 Hrs. technically made more money than the original film had, its significantly higher budget ate into those profits, and the film scored some terrible reviews.

Title:	Another 48 Hrs.
Year of Release:	1990
Director:	Walter Hill
Watched On:	4K Ultra HD Blu-ray
Available On:	Blu-ray Paramount+ Various VOD purchase and rental platforms

Another 48 Hrs. is practically a textbook example of an unnecessary sequel. Even the title comes right out and says that it’s going to be another iteration of what fans liked in the first one. Imagine if every franchise did the same and we had Another Star Wars or Another Mission: Impossible. (As it is, I’m only aware of Another Stakeout.) For that matter, the sequel’s script doesn’t even bother to work the title conceit into the story this time. The plot has no 48-hour clock the characters must work against.

That oversight notwithstanding, the second movie largely plays as a retread of the first. Despite Reggie Hammond (Murphy) only having six months remaining on his sentence when we last left him, we find him still in prison years later for contrived reasons. Once again, San Francisco cop Jack Cates (Nick Nolte) needs his help on a case, and the screenplay cobbled together by three different writers makes weak excuses for why the two men would return back to arguing all the time after they’d already bonded and become friends.

Rather than spring him on a temporary furlough, Reggie is released free and clear, only to wind up targeted by a trio of scummy bikers trying to kill him – one of whom is the brother of James Remar’s villain Ganz from the first film. Revenge isn’t their only motive, however. It’s no spoiler to say that the bikers are merely the henchmen for a shadowy crime boss known only as “Iceman,” who needs both Reggie and Jack out of the picture. Jack is so obsessed with uncovering this Iceman’s identity that he’s driven his own career to ruin pursuing the case. The situation has gotten so bad for him that he’s facing manslaughter charges and may ironically wind up in prison himself unless Reggie can help Jack catch the Iceman and clear his name.

Within this framework, the sequel of course works in a bunch of fan-service callbacks to the first movie, including Reggie singing “Roxanne” and a big confrontation in a seedy bar (this time with Jack being the showboat and Reggie standing back to watch). Nevertheless, on the whole, the movie makes a lot less attempt at humor than the original, in favor of amping up the action and brutal violence. To that end, it has some decent set-pieces, including an impressive stunt where a prison bus flips over a bunch of times, but the shoot-outs become a little monotonous with the excessive amount of broken glass flying everywhere. After a while, the number of times characters smash through windows or fall onto glass tables feels like it must be a running joke that nobody except director Walter Hill was privy to.

The biker villains are barely defined as characters and make little impression as individuals. Other than Ganz’s brother, whom I thought was named “Terry” at first only to later find out is actually “Cherry,” I have no idea what the names of the other two are. The plot twist involving Iceman’s identity is pretty easy to figure out, even for someone who hadn’t seen the movie in 34 years and didn’t remember any of the story details.

The thread of racial tension that was central to the first 48 Hrs. has also been dialed way down. Without it, this one feels like it lacks much point or purpose for existing, other than as a victory lap for a pair of popular characters. Unfortunately, the sexist streak is still present, if moderately reduced.

At the end of the day, the original 48 Hrs. stands well enough on its own without needing a follow-up, and the one we got adds little to nothing essential to that story or the characters. All the same, as far as obvious cash-grab sequels go, Another 48 Hrs. isn’t an embarrassment, either. It’s passably entertaining, and certainly could have been a lot worse. I think critics of the day may have been a little too hard on it in their zeal to knock what they perceived as a star with an inflated ego down another peg. I don’t know how often I’ll realistically plan to rewatch Another 48 Hrs., but I don’t feel that this revisit was too much a waste of my time.

The 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray

As far as I’m aware, Another 48 Hrs. didn’t see release on the Blu-ray format until the “Paramount Presents” edition in 2021. That was followed by a 4K Ultra HD upgrade in 2022, available either on its own or bundled into a 2-Movie Collection (the version I own) with the original 48 Hrs.

I was pretty critical of the 48 Hrs. 4K transfer in my review of that disc, but ultimately gave it a pass. Unfortunately, I can’t do the same for the sequel. This disc is a total mess. From start to finish, the 1.85:1 image has a really ghastly, over-processed appearance with some terrible combination of sharpening and… well, I’d accuse it of having Digital Noise Reduction, except that no noise appears to have been reduced anywhere. The entire movie is grainy and gritty as hell, in a very exaggerated fashion. The grain frequently takes an unnatural texture and moves in weird patterns, including one instance of diagonal streaks during the opening credits.

I have no information on the provenance of this video master, but it looks like a really old transfer, probably sourced from an element several generations away from the camera negative. In addition to all the digital processing, colors are drab and detail is weak. If any HDR grading was applied, it doesn’t seem to have done anything.

I assume that the accompanying Blu-ray in the case is the same as the 2021 Paramount Presents release. Screenshots on this page were taken from that disc. It’s derived from the same underlying master and I wouldn’t say it looks any better, but some viewers may actually find it moderately more watchable, in that the lower resolution somewhat helps to soften and even out the aggressive grain.

If these discs (either the Blu-ray or the 4K Ultra HD) have any saving grace, the Dolby TrueHD 5.1 soundtrack sounds pretty great, with very rich musical presence for the James Horner score and tons of loud, booming gunshots.

The 4K disc has no bonus features. The Blu-ray offers only a trailer and a 14-minute interview in which director Walter Hill admits that he has mixed feelings about the movie, and only agreed to direct it because he knew it was getting made with or without him and he didn’t want anyone else to do it.

Related

• Walter Hill
  • 48 Hrs. (1982)
  • The Warriors (1979)
  • Southern Comfort (1981)
• Eddie Murphy
  • Beverly Hills Cop (1984)
  • Beverly Hills Cop II (1987)
  • Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F (2024)

Note: All screenshots on this page were taken from the standard Blu-ray edition of the film and are used for illustration purposes only.