Well, it wasn’t for lack of trying. This Beverly Hills Cop reboot might be many things including tired, redundant, shallow, and ham-fisted, but there was a 100% good faith effort here to give Beverly Hills Cop fans exactly what they wanted.
Judge Reinhold, John Ashton, Paul Reiser, and Bronson Pinchot all revived their original Beverly Hills Cop roles. There were multiple far-fetched “Axel talks his way into something” moments. There was a shootout in which Reinhold and Ashton are pinned down beneath heavy gunfire. There was an “Axel messes with a stakeout” scene. There was a soundtrack so hilariously dated you already knew all the songs. In fact, the soundtrack was so retro that when I saw Kevin Bacon on screen, I expected to start hearing “Footloose.”
And just in case the anticipated kitsch doesn’t work for you, the film also added Luis Guzman and Shooter McGavin (Christopher McDonald) cameos just for good measure. Honestly, the film was made as if every scene was crowdsource-approved by people who saw Beverly Hills Cop in a theater in 1984.
Is that a good thing? Not really. As I say, it wasn’t for lack of trying that Director Mark Molloy and co. made an iffy film; they -quite clearly- listened to their base.
Axel (Eddie Murphy) is still a rogue Detroit detective. Detective Foley has never been promoted in forty years and is still pulling outrageous not-by-the-book crap, like when he foresees a heist at a Red Wings game, but can’t tell anybody about it (why not?), so he cons a peer to go to the game and make the bust in (peer)’s name. And if you think it went smoothly or you wouldn’t hear Bob Seger’s “Shakedown” in the process, you probably haven’t seen a Beverly Hills Cop film. I was impressed the word “Winnipeg” made it into two separate heist-related conversations. On the list of “words I wouldn’t have expected to show up in a Beverly Hills Cop film,” well, that was close to the top. Probably would have been funnier if “Winnipeg” became a running joke for the rest of the film. Alas.
Meanwhile, in Beverly Hills, there is drug-running and murder. Axel Foley’s daughter, Jane (Taylour Paige), is a defense attorney determined to find her client innocent. When she is threatened by the drug-running thugs, Axel
makes yet another trip to the West Coast to annoy people until bad guys get shot. It should be pointed out here that none of the cops Axel worked with forty years ago are retired. None of them. Cuz cop is an old-age job? Taggart (Ashton) and Jeffrey (Resier) are both now police chiefs. Billy (Reinhold) isn’t a cop, but is a P.I. He gets kidnapped early on; good thing Axel is comin’.
And just in case you didn’t have enough of everything Axel, there is an ounce of new blood. Jane’s ex is Detective Bobby Abbott (Joseph Gordon-Levitt). I’m sure we’ll be seeing plenty of him.
After that point, I’m not sure the film exactly writes itself, but you get the impression that the director and crew watched Beverly Hills Cop constantly in between shoots.
So, is Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F good? Not especially. Eddie Murphy looks great, but just isn’t as funny or edgy as he used to be. That’s natural. This dulled coping with reality was compensated for by Axel having a poor relationship with his estranged daughter. Sure, we fogies can relate, right? We were once all young punks solving crimes the hard way, then we settled, had families, and went to war with our children. As we approach our final act, we all now wanna make nice. It’s cliché but it’s also … cliché. The film is good enough to watch once, maybe, with others around you who have strong memories of the original. But of the four Beverly Hills Cop films, only the original is worth watching more than once.
There was once a detective called Foley
Who embraced chaotic policing wholly
He returned to the scene
Where he lit up the screen
And figured out fatherhood … slowly
Rated R, 118 Minutes
Director: Mark Molloy
Writer: Danilo Bach, Daniel Petrie Jr., Will Beall
Genre: Memory Lane
Type of being most likely to enjoy this film: Did you memorize the Delirious stand-up once upon a time?
Type of being least likely to enjoy this film: “There’s nothing new here”
