Set three decades after the last installment of the franchise, Axel Foley (played by Eddie Murphy) travels out to Southern California after hearing his good friend — and series regular — Billy Rosewood (Judge Reinhold) went missing while investigating a case. Before he leaves, his Chief (Paul Reiser) encourages him to reconnect with his daughter Jane Saunders (Taylour Paige) while he’s out there. After he gets arrested while evading burglars ransacking Rosewood’s office, Foley uses his one phone call to contact Saunders, a defense attorney. The two find they have a mutual interest in the case and work together in order to find Rosewood, prove her client has been framed and bury emotional family history all at the same time.
BEVERLY HILLS COP: AXEL F rescues the franchise from an intense sour note much like how INDIANA JONES AND THE DIAL OF DESTINY did for the Indiana Jones series. Both had strong beginnings, followed by a miserable installment that not only soured their respective sagas but also repelled any public interest in making another one. There’s even a nod to this in the film where Detective Bobby Abbott (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) is recalling all the different years Axel has been arrested in Beverly Hills and notes how 1994 was “not your finest hour.”
Murphy seems to be enjoying himself in revisiting a character that’s been in pop culture consciousness for 40 years. That joy is coupled with a fun script, a decent story and solid callbacks to the originals. We get to see characters like John Taggart (John Ashton) and Serge (Bronson Pinchot) again and they’re perfectly placed, not forced. Furthermore, the addition of Kevin Bacon brings a sense of seriousness to the project to help combat it’s “silly” nature.
I don’t know if Murphy did this just to get a paycheck or not but I’m sure glad he did! Netflix has scored with a perfect streaming project here. As an audience member who grew up during the 80’s and 90’s, it’s so fun to see another installment of the BEVERLY HILLS COP franchise be worthy of my time. Would it work on the big screen as opposed to streaming? Probably. But it’s also nothing special. If you aren’t familiar with the original two then this might just be a fun “time waster” to put on in the background while doing chores or cooking. But, if you’re a fan of the 1984 and 1987 installments, AXEL F will hit all the right notes.
JKG SCORE: 6.0
Untitled Film Project 