Sister Act 2: Back in the Habit

As Jamie Kennedy put it in Scream 2 - “Sequels are inferior films by definition�. Hey hey, bingo right here! But at least this still has four of the five major things that were good about Sister Act: Whoopi Goldberg, Maggie Smith, Kathy Najimy and Musical Numbers. It’s a start...

This film picks up in Reno, where Deloris (Goldberg) is actually a successful lounge singer (who woulda thunk it?). The sisters of St. Catherine’s are in a dilemma, and are in way over their heads. They are in charge of a school that is really run by the rowdy, disobedient rebellious teenagers that are meant to be the students. So, they come to Deloris for help, naturally. Once again she becomes Sister Mary Clarance and once again she brings life into the eyes of the other sisters, as she tackles the school head-on as the new music teacher.

This film is rated G, which we can easily tell from some of the (so-called) comedic sequences which simply scream ‘G’. Goldberg is her cheerful, bubbly, charismatic self on screen and holds the film together with the help of Maggie Smith, Kathy Najimy and Wendy Makkenna as the other sisters. James Coburn as Mr. Crisp plays the G-rated villain so well (or at least as well as a G-rated villain can be played). The musical numbers are not as abundant in this film, but the finale is entertaining nonetheless. Maybe it is just bringing back personal memories from a trip to Sydney for the Performing Arts Challenge in 2001 with the Chamber Singers during my final year of high school? Ah, a trip down memory lane *tear*...

The video is presented in a widescreen aspect of 1.85:1 and this time around it's anamorphically enhanced. Yet aliasing still seems to be the largest problem, even with this enhancement. Another drinking game movie – count the steps *yet again*.

Colours are rich and vibrant, but are slightly over-saturated at times, most often when action is happening in front of a strongly-backlit window. Blacks are solid, as they should be, and no low level noise can be seen.

Film artefacts are few and far between, but as soon as the end credits start they come out to play. Why clean up the film then leave the action during the credits messy with black specks covering the screen? But anyway, grain isn’t a problem on this transfer, it just gives a slight wash over the picture that is barely noticeable. There's very little by way of compression artefacts, just some minor cases on backgrounds with gradual colour changes.

Being a dual layered disc, there is a layer change at 65:40 which is slick and unobtrusive. Subtitles have one again been included for English, Spanish, Swedish, Norwegian, Danish and Finnish. The synchronisation of these subtitles is much better than Sister Act, and they are still accurate and faithful to the dialogue.

We are given two audio tracks, a Dolby Digital 5.1 English and a Spanish 2.0 Surround-encoded track. Naturally the English is the ideal track to listen to for those of us who speak English. OK, here we go again, if the soundtrack is originally in stereo, at least include it on the disc. This 5.1 track suffers the same fate as the 5.1 on the Sister Act disc, which is hollow and very artificial.

Dialogue comes from the centre speaker, as do the effects and music. The only things to come from the front left and right and rear left and right channels is the score, which leaves a lot to be desired as this produces a flat soundstage which isn’t the easiest thing to listen to. Just include the original stereo track and it would all be good...

Whoops, nothing here, they must have been left in the other habit...

Sister Act 2 doesn’t really recapture the magic of the first film, as tends to be the case with most sequels, but it is still an entertaining ride with a good laugh or two along the way. The video is good, but not great, and the audio should have been left as a stereo track. The extras have been misplaced... again... oh well.