BEVERLY HILLS COP: AXEL F - Mark Reviews Movies

Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F, Netflix

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Review by Mark Dujsik | July 3, 2024

A character in Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F refers to the eponymous cop's 1994 escapade as not his "finest hour." That's putting it kindly, since everyone knows the third movie revolving around Eddie Murphy's Axel Foley was bad enough to put a quick stop to this popular series and make some question if its star had lost the comedic verve he solidified in the '84 original film. That third movie was so bad that it took 30 years to make another sequel, and if this belated fourth entry isn't quite up to snuff, it does serve as evidence that Murphy, with some help from new and returning cast members, can still carry and nearly elevate formulaic material.

Make no mistake, either: This new installment is an example of pure formula on multiple levels. It's one as a comedic actioner, in which the plot exists to give us some chases and shootouts, while the character mainly serve to provide jokes.

It's also one in terms of the series, which once again finds an excuse for Axel to leave his hometown of Detroit to solve a mystery in the swanky Los Angeles suburb of the title. Finally, the movie gives us exactly what we've come to expect, since they've become so prevalent recently, from a later-years sequel, as our protagonist's previous actions are questioned by some new-blood characters—but not enough, obviously, for much of that behavior to change.

Here, Axel is still a determined Detroit police detective, even though his longtime colleague Jeffrey (Paul Reiser) has risen in the ranks to a department chief and is ready to retire. Retirement, though, doesn't seem to be in Axel's vocabulary, just as the concept of proper police procedure hasn't yet registered in his mind. The opening sequence sees him attending a hockey game with a rookie detective, certain that some criminals are about to rob the home team's locker room. After commandeering a snowplow to chase the bad guys, Axel demolishes countless cars, including police vehicles, in pursuit of the thieves.

We're used to such destruction when it comes to Axel, of course, but for all the talk of a change in the climate around policing and warnings that his actions will eventually catch up with our sarcastic and reckless hero, none of that really comes into play here. By the end of the movie, Axel will have been arrested twice ("But I escaped," he consoles his pal back in Detroit, without much consolation), caused even more damage while involved in a chase, stolen a police helicopter, and shot many henchmen in Beverly Hills. Times haven't changed much, apparently, or else, the screenplay by Will Beall, Tom Gormican, and Kevin Etten doesn't have enough imagination to pay off what they've set up in any way.

No, this installment sticks to what worked 40 years ago, with diminishing results in each successive sequel. Axel has to return to Beverly Hills to help his estranged daughter Jane (Taylour Paige), now a defense attorney who moved there with her late mother after she had had enough of Axel's professional obsession.

She has become caught up in a conspiracy involving a drug cartel and corrupt cops (The movie, thankfully, never tries to make a mystery of the villain's identity, since he's played by Kevin Bacon with reptilian menace from his first scene). His old friend Billy Rosewood (Judge Reinhold), retired from the police and now a private investigator, lets Axel know of the danger Jane is in before he disappears while looking into the case.

Also returning is John Taggart (John Ashton), who has become the chief of the local department and becomes yet another voice scolding Axel for how little he has changed. That's fine enough, since the tension of Axel's freewheeling ways and people who want things done by the book has been a cornerstone of the comedy of this series since its beginning. More convincing, though, is the relationship between Axel and Jane, who can't forgive her father for giving up his family for the job but also can't help to be a lot like him when she becomes directly involved in the investigation. It's a shame Jane's eventually sidelined for Axel to partner up with Joseph Gordon-Levitt's Det. Abbott, a new straight man (That's solid character naming, by the way) to Axel's shenanigans and Jane's ex-boyfriend, who only ever feels as if he's filling the shoes of the mostly absent Reinhold.

The screenplay and director Mark Molloy, throwing a darker modern polish on the familiar material, take the father-daughter relationship seriously, which is pleasant surprise for a series that has prided itself (infamously falling with the third movie, just to make that point as clear as possible) on its star's ability to make a joke of almost anything. Murphy's still having fun with the role that cemented his stardom, and that's also nice to see, since he seemed lost the last time we saw him playing it three decades ago.

The resilience of Murphy's career and on-screen charm becomes more impressive as the years progress. He'll seem out of the game entirely, only for something like Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F to come along and remind us of what he could and still can do as a comedic presence. Maybe that's why it's easy to get behind Axel again, even if the movie only pushes him in the same, old directions.

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