Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F

4 outta 5

Comedy legacy sequels that come out decades after the original, are often dicey propositions as comedy sequels are hard to nail down what clicks from the original. Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F is the 4^th Beverly Hills Cop movie arriving 30 years after the not great Beverly Hills Cop III from 1994. In fact, there’s even a line in this film when a character references the events from “’94, not your finest hour.” Although the Beverly Hills Cop films aren’t entirely comedies, they are detective, mystery, buddy action flicks with a dose of comedy, most of it coming for Eddie Murphy’s still incredibly skilled motormouth. Also, the theme song over and over but, dangit, it is still catchy. If anything, this is much better than the dire third film, although that is not a high bar to clear.

Axel Foley (Murphy) is still a detective in Detroit, still getting on Chief Friedman’s (Paul Reiser) nerves. But his old friend from California, Billy (Judge Reinhold), calls up Axel and Foley takes a plane to Beverly Hills. Axel’s estranged daughter, Jane (Taylour Paige), a lawyer, has been threatened by thugs who want her to drop a criminal case. Back in his old stomping grounds, and with a daughter who wants so little to do with him she changed her last name, Axel and Jane get caught up in an investigation that features the slimy police Captain Grant (Kevin Bacon), someone whom Axel immediately suspects is dirty. Axel’s buddy Billy is also missing, and as Axel’s old friend Chief Taggart (John Ashton) is getting annoyed with Axel interfering. They team up with Detective Bobby Abbot (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), which is somewhat awkward as Bobby and Jane used to date. Now Axel must uncover this criminal conspiracy and make a lot of quips, engage in various chases, and still reconnect with his daughter.

The tone, score, and numerous f-bombs, succeeds in recreating the feel of the first two movies. Murphy may not be as spry as he was in his 20s, obviously, but Axel still has an infectious energy. Is it a bit unfortunate that Axel hasn’t changed in the last few decades and is still working a detective beat? Probably, but when someone says he should be relaxing instead of chasing bad guys, Axel yells mid-chase “This is how I relax!” There are many moments when he is snarky Axel, like when he teases his daughter for changing her last name to Saunders and he makes some childish noises about how uncool “Saunders” is to “Foley”. And when he shows up at an NHL game with a co-worker in Detroit, he makes some cracks about hockey and reveals he is there to catch some bad guys. Then there’s a chaotic truck chase as the notable music cues from Beverly Hills Cop plays. Is it easy to crank the soundtrack from the 1980s films and let the nostalgia vibes fly? Probably, but it is effective.

While we see Axel’s old gang in small doses, the main buddy-cop pairing is Axel and his daughter. They have a decent back and forth, as the daughter often leaves Axel twisting in the wind, like when he first calls her saying he’s in Beverly Hills and has been arrested and she repeatedly hangs up on him. Paige gets to get in some serious moments as she says that Axel left her behind as a child. She isn’t one of the funniest sidekicks that Axel has had, and a lot of the movie is spent waiting for Reinhold’s Billy to show up, but it does give Axel some depth he hasn’t had before. Somewhat predictably, Jane is used as kidnap bait in the finale.

It is great to see returning characters Billy and Taggart, the latter constantly crabbing about his wife and health. When Billy comes back for the finale he gets to unleash some firepower and Reinhold looks ecstatic. Gordon-Levitt as the new cop and former boyfriend gets to look exasperated with Foley’s antics. Bacon gets to be the cocky jerk that Bacon is often great at playing, and he gets in a decent bad guy rant when he says the reason he commits crimes is because he isn’t getting enough appreciation for all of his years working as a cop.

In the middle of the film, it gets a little saggy with Axel has his daughter chasing down leads, but it does have the return of Serge (Bronson Pinchot) who gets to make funny remarks and pronounce things strangely. But the best stuff is the action and quips. The film is awash in f-bombs which already makes it feel like a throwback, and there are big spectacle action bits like when Abbot reveals he used to be a helicopter pilot so Axel tells him to steal a helicopter but then Abbot proceeds to be terrible at flying. Also the shootout at the end has lots of headshots and blood splatter, that feels like R-rated action, something that has been lost over the last few decades. Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F definitely may push the nostalgia button a bit too hard and may repeat some bits from the earlier films, but this feels a part of the 1980s movies, even if everyone is considerably older. But Axel is still a blast to watch.