Judge Reinhold is driving a truck down the highway, pursued by irate officers, when he turns to Eddie Murphy at the wheel and says something we've all felt: "God, I missed you, Axel."
We all truly did, but we get the sardonic and lovely Axel Foley again in Netflix's "Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F," exactly 30 years after "1994's Beverly Hills Cop III." Is the latest film any good? What is the big deal?
Not only do Murphy and Reinhold return to the Axel Foley Cinematic Universe in this fourth installment, but so do long-time co-stars Paul Reiser, John Ashton, and Bronson Pinchot. Kevin Bacon, Taylour Paige, and Joseph Gordon-Levitt make their film debuts.
The plot is quite straightforward: Murphy's Foley is living his best cop life in Detroit, trashing things spectacularly, when he is sent to Beverly Hills to assist his estranged daughter, played with tremendous grit by Taylour Paige. He subsequently becomes involved in a murder case with corrupt cops, which allows him to mock snobby Beverly Hills.
The languid pace and '80s atmosphere of Mark Molloy's helmed sequel may perplex newcomers. It's not as humorous as earlier installments or as ambitious as sequels to beloved franchises have become. But it features Murphy blowing things up and making jokes, which is all we really need.
Eddie Murphy and Judge Reinhold attend the international premiere of "Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F" on June 20 in Beverly Hills at the Wallis Annenberg Centre for the Performing Arts.
“Goddamn, Foley. Here we go again,” says Ashton, playing the exasperated chief of police, and that sentiment runs through the fourth entry. All you need to make your Gen X friends happy is a montage of Murphy behind the wheel while “The Heat Is On” by Glenn Frey plays.
The film's soundtrack includes the instrumental track "Axel F" by Harold Faltermeyer, which is played around 5,000 times.
There are also several vehicles commandeered in "Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F," which could be a tribute to the core group's advanced age. There are snowploughs, helicopters, golf carts, and trucks, yet none of them are returned in perfect condition.
The screenwriters, Will Beall, Tom Gormican, and Kevin Etten, provide lots of opportunities for Murphy to improvise while also crafting some unexpectedly excellent dialogue between Foley and his 32-year-old daughter, who are both nursing injured emotions.
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“You didn’t fight. I’m your daughter. The only thing you’ve ever fought for is your job,” she tells him. “Look, we both messed this thing up. All right? Let's just call it even.” Come for the explosions, stay for the heart-to-hearts.
Murphy proves it with the song "Family Affair" by Mary J. Blige. In one scene, Foley gets captured while attempting to flee in a comically small police cruiser. Murphy's daughter, Bria, one of his ten children, plays a traffic cop. Another cop who later tases him is his son-in-law.
A lot has changed in the three decades since Foley broke laws and skulls, and there's a sense of requiem as these elderly men return to war. "They don't want swashbucklers around anymore. "They want social workers," Reiser's detective explains.
There are jokes about Wesley Snipes, small yappy dogs and Spirit airlines, a scary shootout on Wilshire Boulevard, way too much synth played and an inside joke about the last sequel, a stinker: Gordon-Levitt goes through all of Foley's brushes with the California police and says “'94, not your finest hour.”
“Axel F” is not exactly Murphy's finest hour, either. But Murphy just saying “Jesus!” is funny. Let's hope we don't have to wait another 30 years for our next Axel Foley fix. God, we've missed him.
“Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F," a Netflix release that starts streaming Wednesday, is rated R for “language throughout, violence and brief drug use.” Running time: 117 minutes. Two stars out of four.
MPAA definition of R: Restricted. Under 17 requires accompanying parent or adult guardian.
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