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No one was more excited to watch Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F than a true Eddie Murphy fan such as myself. But apart from the nostalgia on steroids, I did not get much from this movie, not even good jokes.
This movie is just like any other made-for-streaming movie which is made just for the sake of filling a quota or something, missing any real passion or effort.
The Plot
The plot of Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F is nothing spectacular, with Foley stepping in to protect his daughter from new foes with some of his old friends. With the right execution, this movie could have been mind-blowing and a loving homage to the legacy of the Beverly Hill Cop franchise.
The first scene sees Axel Foley smiling while driving through the streets of Detroit which feels like time traveling back to at least a couple of his 80s and 90s movies where he does the exact same thing. Of course, the "The Heat Is On" song is blaring in the background which makes you feel like you're back in Beverly Hills Cop I. This is basically Eddie Murphy's version of Rocky's walk in Rocky I.
The background music is spot on in this movie just like Eddie Murphy's hair. Also, all the veteran actors from the first movie in this series do a bang-up job of acting without much effort coming across.
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Eddie Murphy doing a white person impression within the first 10 minutes of the movie is unfortunately the best part of this whole "phone it in" film. One of the action sequences is so bad that it makes you cringe where Axel F gets pepper sprayed twice and he carries one without so much as stopping.
The energy level throughout the movie except for the cliché action sequences is that of a lazy Sunday Brunch where you fall asleep after a mediocre meal and just a bit too much wine. It feels like the movie makers just got into their flip-flops one fine weekend and shot this whole low-energy mess while working off a heavy lunch.
The Cast of Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F
The fact that Eddie Murphy looks 40 even when he is 63 years young helps the movie a whole lot considering it could use all the help it can get. The force is strong in this movie, in terms of nostalgia - a lot of the original cast is brought back from Paul Reiser and John Ashton as Jeffrey and Taggart to Judge Reinhold and Bronson Pinchot as William and Serge.
But nostalgia alone can't propel a movie into critical and box office success, even if it does a bit of fan appeasement.
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The more you watch Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F, the more you feel that a comedy heavyweight is being utterly wasted in a tasteless nostalgia-bait movie. The plot is lazy, the action is underwhelming and meaningless, and a world-class ensemble is funneled into something that would have been better off as a short or even a parody on SNL.
Joesph Gordon Levitt does so much with the microscopic amount of screen time he's given. I like one particular scene where he says so much with just one look while talking to Axel Foley, it's bloody brilliant.
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Judge Reinhold who reprises his role as William looks haggard as hell and just a little crazy, especially in the eyes. But he still retains some of his charm and all of his acting skills which are a delight to behold, although I think his best performance was in Beverly Hill Cops III.
Taylour Paige while easy on the eyes is hard to watch as an actor doing her thing in this movie as Foley's daughter Jane. She might be a wonderful human being, but definitely isn't a great actor with a mostly wooden face and equally vanilla expressions.
You also get an eyeful of Luiz Guzman singing the Spanish version of Hall and Oates' Maneater in his undies which is delightfully hilarious. Also new to this franchise is Kevin Bacon's Big Bad persona which fits him like a glove and shows how versatile he is as an actor, although lately Bacon's been the bad guy in movies more often than not.
Should You Watch It? Maybe.
If you already have a Netflix subscription then you can probably watch as much as you can stomach of this lazily put-together movie. Otherwise, you aren't missing much and can pass on this bland attempt at a movie.
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