During the 1990s, Eddie Murphy’s career took a notable dive, a fact that resulted in a notorious David Spade insult on SNL circa 1995. However, Murphy’s cinematic fortunes didn’t immediately die as soon as the calendar changed from the 1980s to the 1990s.

Actually, the first real box office ding happened in 1989, as the much-hyped Harlem Nights disappointed. Because it only cost $30 million, its $95 million take means it turned a profit, but given Murphy’s star power and the presence of others like Richard Pryor, that gross fell far below expectations.

The same occurred for 1990’s Another 48 Hrs, as that heavily touted sequel made a respectable but still underwhelming total. Again, its $153 million on a $50 million budget represented a profit, but I suspect those involved anticipated better.

The bottom fell out for Murphy with late 1992’s The Distinguished Gentleman, a dud that failed to recoup its expenses, but at least Murphy enjoyed another moderate success with that summer’s Boomerang, a flick that brought in $131 million on a $42 million budget.

Marcus Graham (Murphy) works as a successful advertising executive – and an even more successful womanizer. Marcus woos multiple ladies all at the same time and shows no interest in settling down with anyone.

Marcus meets his match when Jacqueline Boyer (Robin Givens) enters his workplace. Not only does she get the coveted account he desired, but she also fails to succumb to his usual romantic shtick. Marcus needs to deal with these various challenges – and maybe fall in love along the way.

Though inevitable, that becomes the “twist” that attempts to forgive some of Boomerang’s less than PC moments. Through much of the film, we find a strong strain of misogyny as well as spurts of homophobia.

Marcus shifts when he turns into “the woman” after Jacqueline treats him the way he acted toward so many of the women he used over the years. On the surface, this does seem to give the movie an attempt at squaring the situation and redeeming all the ugliness of the first half.

However, I don’t really buy it. While I should admire that the ever-egotistical Murphy allows himself to get taken down a peg, it feels contrived and phony.

The movie doesn’t really seem to want to go where it goes. Those involved feel more at home with the “boys will be boys” crudeness of the first half and don’t seem to know what to do when Marcus changes his ways.

Murphy got criticism for misogyny and homophobia in the 80s, but those stemmed more from his standup. For instance, Raw came with substantial bitterness toward women, and Delirious could be awfully homophobic.

Admittedly, these sentiments weren’t terribly outside the mainstream in the 80s, so I can’t call Murphy tone deaf. Nonetheless, the attitudes were already problematic 35 years ago, and they fare even worse circa 2022.

Even if we ignore these issues, Boomerang never becomes better than mediocre, mainly because it feels more like a random collection of comedic scenes than a coherent movie. We find a mix of situations that lean toward one general theme, but too much of the film just wanders off on random tangents.

As a result, Boomerang runs nearly two hours, far too long for a nearly plot-free character comedy like this. Again, the lack of narrative focus means that we find a lot of sequences without much real purpose, and these create a drag along the way.

At its core, Boomerang tells a simple story. It just doesn’t get where it needs to go with any real focus, and that semi-excessive length ensures that it grows tedious well before it ends.

Boomerang does come with a pretty terrific cast. In addition to Murphy and Givens, we find Halle Berry, Eartha Kitt, Grace Jones, Martin Lawrence, Chris Rock, John Witherspoon, Tisha Campbell, Geoffrey Holder and David Alan Grier, among others. Heck, we even find filmmaking pioneer Melvin Van Peebles in a quick cameo.

None of them flop, and they help create some amusement along the way – especially Witherspoon’s small turn. However, they can’t overcome the general tedium of the film as a whole.

You can find worse Eddie Murphy movies than Boomerang, but it still stands as mediocre at best. Though some aspects of the film work acceptably well, too much remains problematic.

Boomerang appears in an aspect ratio of 1.85:1 on this Blu-ray Disc. Though the film makes its Blu-ray debut here, the disc clearly doesn’t represent a new scan.

In general, the movie looked fairly well-defined. Some softness materialized – primarily during lower light interiors - but the film usually came across as pretty accurate, if not razor-sharp.

No issues with jagged edges or moiré effects appeared, but some light edge haloes presented themselves. Grain felt inconsistent, and a mix of print flaws showed up, as I saw persistent specks, marks and debris.

Colors tended toward a brownish feel that seemed adequate. The hues came across as somewhat dull but not bad.

Blacks were fairly dark, whereas shadows were acceptable, if not strong. I strongly suspect Paramount just reused an old DVD transfer for this lackluster presentation.

At least the movie’s DTS-HD MA 5.1 soundtrack fared better. Not that one should expect sonic greatness from a character comedy like this, but the audio seemed appropriate.

The soundscape stayed semi-limited, as it emphasized general environment. A few scenes opened up a bit better, though – like a thunderstorm or airplanes – and music showed nice involvement.

Audio quality felt dated but decent, with speech that usually seemed fine. Some edginess interfered at times, but the lines remained intelligible and generally solid.

Music tended to sound peppy and vivid, while effects seemed reasonably accurate. Some distortion crept in at times, but that didn’t turn into a substantial concern. This was a more than adequate mix for a character comedy from 1992.

A few extras come up here, and we find an audio commentary from director Reginald Hudlin. He offers a running, screen-specific look at story/characters, cast and performances, sets and locations, music, editing, costumes, and related domains.

At his best, Hudlin manages to cover a good array of topics. However, this comes with an awful lot of happy talk, so expect Hudlin to ladle out tons of praise. If you can get past all the plaudits, you’ll find a reasonably informative chat.

Five Deleted/Extended Scenes fill a total of four minutes, 51 seconds. The first four offer short additions, while the fifth actually combines a couple different sequences between Angela and Gerard. Nothing important appears, but some minor comedy results.

We can watch these scenes with or without commentary from Hudlin. He tells us short notes about the sequences but he doesn’t usually say why they didn’t get into the final film.

As Eddie Murphy entered his second decade as a movie star, Boomerang found him stuck in neutral. While the film comes with occasional pleasures, it suffers from too many problems to turn into anything winning. The Blu-ray offers generally good and a few bonus materials but visuals seem dated and drab. This turns into a flawed release for an erratic flick.