Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F review – fish-out-of-water Eddie Murphy chases past glories
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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, menaced by a conspiracy of corrupt cops, which may involve flinty-eyed, suit-wearing Captain Grant (Kevin Bacon) – and once again, among other franchise old-timers, Axel runs into his old BHPD cop pals Billy (Judge Reinhold) and John (John Ashton) who has supposedly retired and then unretired and come back as chief. Like the Detroit police department and indeed the Miami police which employs bad boys Will Smith and Martin Lawrence, they have a laid-back attitude to retirement.
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