Forty years removed from the original film, and 30 years after the release of the reviled Beverly Hills Cop III, Axel Foley (Eddie Murphy) is still trying to solve crimes in Detroit and driving his partner-turned-boss Jeffrey Friedman (Paul Reiser) crazy with his destructive approach. When Foley’s estranged daughter Jane Saunders (Taylour Paige), now a criminal defense lawyer in Beverly Hills, runs afoul of the wrong people, he jets out west to try to help her out, whether she wants it or not.
In addition to reuniting with old pals like Billy Rosewood (Judge Reinhold) and now-chief John Taggart (John Ashton), Axel has run-ins with Detective Bobby Abbott (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), an old flame of Jane, as well as Captain Cade Grant (Kevin Bacon), who’s immediately telegraphed as a dirty cop. As usual, despite a lack of standing in the city or being asked to help by anyone around him, Axel inserts himself into all sorts of situations with varying results.
Directed by first-time feature director Mark Molloy and written by Will Beall, Tom Gormican, and Kevin Etten, the film is two hours full of strung-together moments that never come close to being funny, exciting, or suspenseful. A big part of this is that the filmmakers barely attempt to differentiate the 63-year-old Axel from him as a 23-year-old. It’s one thing to be a smart-ass bumping up against authority when you’re young, but another thing entirely when your peers have gone on to be the authorities.
But even that would be okay if the filmmakers had given him anything interesting to do. Instead, they subject the audience to multiple arguments between Axel and Jane that are barely believable, a central plot that makes little sense and wanders aimlessly, and action that vacillates between laughable and strangely graphic for a supposed comedy. They also go for some cheap laughs at the expense of out-of-touch rich Beverly Hills residents, but the bit never lands.
Films like this live on the nostalgia created by including elements from the original film(s), but they never truly commit to this element, either. Reiser, Reinhold, Ashton, and Bronson Pinchot all reprise their characters, but most of them are on screen for such brief stretches of time that they don’t make much of an impact. They bring back songs like “The Heat is On,” “Neutron Dance,” “Shakedown,” and the iconic “Axel F,” but their placement in the film often feels forced.
Murphy remains a talented performer, but even he seems to be listless in the film. There’s no real joy to be felt in him returning to the character; Instead it feels like a money grab with only occasional flashes of the once-great comedian. Paige has had a few good roles in her career, most notably Zola in 2020, but she and Murphy couldn’t feel less like a father and daughter. Gordon-Levitt is mostly a non-entity in his role, and Bacon hams it up for the second time this week following MaXXXine.
Anytime there’s potential money to be made, you can be sure someone will try to revive a long-dead property, but in the case of Beverly Hills Cop, they should have left well-enough alone. Axel F comes nowhere near the heights of the franchise, instead serving as a drearily dull watch that can’t even get nostalgia right.
—
Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F is now streaming on Netflix.
