Sister Act 2: Back in the Habit (Remastered) (1993)

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General		Extras
Category	Comedy	None
Rating
Year Of Production	1993
Running Time	102:47
RSDL / Flipper	RSDL (65:40)	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Language Select Then Menu
Region Coding	2,4	Directed By	Bill Duke
Studio Distributor	Walt Disney Studios Home Ent.	Starring	Whoopi Goldberg Maggie Smith Kathy Najimy James Coburn Wendy Makkena Lauryn Hill Mary Wickes
Case	Amaray-Transparent-Secure Clip
RPI	$36.95	Music	Miles Goodman

Video		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	None	English Dolby Digital 5.1 (384Kb/s) Spanish Dolby Digital 5.1 (384Kb/s)
Widescreen Aspect Ratio	1.78:1
16x9 Enhancement
Video Format	576i (PAL)
Original Aspect Ratio	1.85:1	Miscellaneous
Jacket Pictures	No
Subtitles	English English for the Hearing Impaired Spanish Swedish Norwegian Danish Finnish Spanish Titling	Smoking	No
		Annoying Product Placement	No
		Action In or After Credits	Yes

    Sister Act is without a doubt my favourite Whoopi Goldberg comedy. Unfortunately, Sister Act 2: Back In The Habit suffers the same fate as so many sequels in that they fail to recapture the magic property that made the original movie memorable.

    Sister Act 2 takes up shortly after the end of the first movie and we find that Deloris Van Cartier (Whoopi Goldberg) has moved from Reno and is now a "headliner" with her own show in Las Vegas. During one of her shows, three of the sisters from the first movie arrive and they lose no time in telling Deloris that there are problems in the Californian school in which they now all teach and that the Mother Superior (Maggie Smith) has sent them to enlist her aid and to bring her back to California with them.

    On arrival at St. Francis, Mother Superior appeals to Deloris to join the school as a teacher and once again use her infectious ability to bring a new spirit to the run-down school and the despairing community. Before you know it, Deloris has agreed and once again finds herself back in the habit as Sister Mary Clarence. This time she's a Sister not because she's in hiding but because the Priests who run St Francis would not accept someone who's neither a nun nor a teacher at their school. So Sister Mary Clarence takes up the post of music teacher to a class of completely undisciplined teenagers who are only in the music class because it's considered "a bird course" - one which they can fly right through. Naturally, she takes up the challenge to solve the problems of the troubled members of the class as well as to find a way to save the school from closure due to its untenable financial position.

    Sister Mary Patrick (Kathy Najimy), Sister Mary Robert (Wendy Makkena) and Sister Mary Lazarus (Mary Wickes) all return to reprise their original characters from the first film.

Video

    This transfer suffers from a significant variability in sharpness.

    The picture is displayed in an aspect ratio of 1.78:1 which is close to, but not quite, the original aspect ratio of 1.85:1. Unlike Sister Act this transfer is 16x9 enhanced.

    While there are no problems with shadow detail or any evidence of low level noise, as already noted, the sharpness of the image is all over the place varying from reasonably sharp to quite noticeably soft.

    Once again we have a movie which utilises a full colour palette and I'm happy to say that it has been faithfully captured in the transfer and is accurately rendered on the screen. There was no sign of any colour bleeding.

    There was a smattering of small marks present throughout the movie but these are not greatly disturbing. There was no sign of any MPEG artefacts. The lack of sharpness in the image has one positive side effect in that the transfer was free of any aliasing.

    Eight subtitle options are available to choose from on this disc. My 10 minute samples of both the English and English For Hearing Impaired subtitles showed them to be word perfect, well timed and displayed in easily readable white text which is positioned at the bottom of the screen.

    This is an RSDL disc with the layer change occurring during Chapter 12 at 65:40. The picture freezes momentarily so it's a reasonably noticeable change.

Video Ratings Summary

Sharpness
Shadow Detail
Colour
Grain/Pixelization
Film-To-Video Artefacts
Film Artefacts
Overall

Audio

    This is a good audio transfer which is devoid of significant flaws but also lacks any really outstanding features.

    There are two Dolby Digital 5.1 audio tracks: English and Spanish. The information printed on the case incorrectly specifies the Spanish audio as Dolby Digital 2.0. The desired track must be selected from an initial menu before the disc will play but can be selected from the setup menu as well. It can't be changed on the fly while the disc is playing. Since I don't speak any Spanish I listened exclusively to the English audio.

    The dialogue was mostly clear and easy to understand, however there were a few occasions in which a few quiet words are lost in either the background noise or the music. I didn't notice any problems with audio sync in this transfer.

    In my opinion, the music in Sister Act was one of the highlights of the movie. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said of the music in this movie as it just doesn't manage to achieve the fun factor of the original. On a positive note, Lauryn Hill has a significant role as one of the students but it's a bit disappointing that we don't get to hear enough of her soulful voice. Jennifer Love Hewitt also appears but only has a minor role and never gets a chance to display her singing talent.

    Except for a few occasions near the end of the film, during the "All State Music Festival", the audio was largely biased towards the screen channels. When the surrounds fire up during these musical numbers, a nicely enveloping soundfield is created.

    From my listening position I was never aware of any sound emanating from the subwoofer.

Audio Ratings Summary

Dialogue
Audio Sync
Clicks/Pops/Dropouts
Surround Channel Use
Subwoofer
Overall

    There are no extras provided with this title.

Menu

    The menu is displayed in an aspect ratio of 1.78:1 and is 16x9 enhanced. Neither animation nor audio is provided.

    The Region 4 version of this disc misses out on:

• French Dolby Digital 2.0 surround encoded audio
• Theatrical trailer

    The Region 1 version of this disc misses out on:

• 16x9 enhancement
• RSDL formatting
• Spanish Dolby Digital 5.1 encoded audio

    The Region 4 disc is the clear winner.

    Sister Act 2: Back In The Habit, like many sequels, is a movie that doesn't live up to the standard set by its predecessor.

    The video quality is average.

    The audio quality is good.

    Once again they've forgotten to put the extras on the disc.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall