Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F review – fish-out-of-water Eddie Murphy chases past glories

Murphy’s maverick cop – and his theme music – are back to fight corruption, but four decades on there’s little energy to enliven their formulaic reunion Eddie Murphy isn’t finished yet – as he proved with his barnstormer of a performance as Blaxploitation pioneer Rudy Ray Moore in Dolemite Is My Name . But there’s something a bit tired and formulaic about this further go-around for his iconic Detroit cop Axel Foley from the Beverly Hills Cop action-comedy franchise which 40 years ago made Murphy an explosive Hollywood star – and whose catchy Axel F theme became an 80s anthem, duly revived here. He’s back for the fourth film, yet again leaving his Detroit turf to be a scruffy fish-out-of-water in the hilariously chi-chi world of Beverly Hills, yet again wryly noticing from the wheel of his car, on the way in, a montage of all the crazy California stuff, including a car registration plate reading: PRE-NUP. Axel’s grownup lawyer daughter Jane (Taylour Paige) is in Beverly Hills, menace

Streaming: Cocaine Bear and the best ‘so bad they’re good’ films

Farcical thriller Cocaine Bear – about a drugged-up bear on the loose – follows in the knowingly naff footsteps of Snakes on a Plane, Sharknado and more

There are some films that feel like a mere addendum to their trailer, and Cocaine Bear is one: an idea that sounds so good and so funny as a quick synopsis that it’s almost immaterial whether the finished film makes much of it or not. Whether or not you’ve seen Elizabeth Banks’s farcical, nominally fact-based thriller, released in cinemas in February, you’re probably aware of its one-line pitch: there’s a bear, you see, that somehow ingests a massive stash of cocaine and goes on an almighty rampage. Chaos ensues. What more do you want from a film?

As it happens, Cocaine Bear is a likably ludicrous romp – ideally suited, now that it’s available on VOD, to a Friday-night watch on the couch with a takeaway. (Perhaps you thought the premise sounded just too silly to justify a cinema trip.) But it never quite matches the zippy energy and gonzo hilarity of its trailer, and it doesn’t really try. It’s a one-joke film that considers its work done when you’ve been sufficiently amused to sit down and watch it.

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