Not that long ago, a legacy sequel like \u201cBeverly Hills Cop: Axel F\u201d would have made a fortune at the box office over the Fourth of July weekend. But times have changed, and the long-awaited fourth film in the Eddie Murphy series is dropping on Netflix instead of in the multiplex. While streaming services sequels usually mean the death of quality control, \u201cAxel F\u201d is a shockingly entertaining diversion, the best in the series since the film that helped make Murphy one of the biggest stars of his generation. Legacy sequels are often cheap nostalgia machines, but there\u2019s been a shift in the subgenre lately with beloved projects like \u201cCreed\u201d and \u201cTop Gun: Maverick.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cAxel F\u201d may not be quite as good as those flicks, but it\u2019s so much closer than anyone could have expected. If nothing else, it reminds\u00a0viewers just how charming Murphy can be in the right material by giving him talented supporting players to bounce his comic timing off, like Taylour Paige, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, and Kevin Bacon. The nostalgic callbacks to characters from the original trilogy feel almost contractually required and, hence, fall flat. Still, there\u2019s enough here to accomplish exactly what Netflix wants on a holiday weekend when people used to go to the theater in droves: make them stay home.<\/p>\n
\u201cAxel F\u201d opens as these films do, with Axel Foley (Eddie Murphy) getting into undercover trouble in Detroit, this time stopping a robbery at a Red Wings game that leads to a destructive chase through the city in a snowplow \u2013 the first of a series of well-staged chase scenes in the film, something that seems like a lost art in an era of over-CGI blockbusters. It\u2019s revealed that Axel\u2019s former partner in the DPD, Jeffrey Friedman (Paul Reiser), is the Chief of Police now, but he\u2019s already submitted his retirement papers. This sets\u00a0in motion a series of conversations about aging law enforcement and a profession that doesn\u2019t always handle its veterans well. \u00a0 <\/p>\n
Axel himself is officially getting too old for this shit himself, but he\u2019s drawn back to Beverly Hills when his estranged daughter Jane (Paige, of \u201cZola\u201d fame) is nearly murdered because she gets too close to a case involving corrupt cops. Of course, this means the return of familiar faces like Billy Rosewood (Judge Reinhold) and John Taggart (John Ashton) too. The former is a private detective after a fallout with BHPD Chief\u00a0Taggart, which led to his leaving the force. Joining this world for the first time are Detective Bobby Abbott (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) and Captain Cade Grant (Kevin Bacon). Abbott is Jane\u2019s ex and an obvious ally; Grant might as well be twirling a handlebar mustache, and he\u2019s so clearly the bad guy. <\/p>\n
From the beginning, \u201cBeverly Hills Cop: Axel F\u201d is buoyant and playful in a way that legacy sequels usually aren\u2019t allowed to be, and that was arguably missing in the more leaden second and third films in this series. Murphy is at his best when he\u2019s allowed to bounce through a film, light on his feet, laughing and smiling in a way that fans find so comforting. Even the score here feels playful as Lorne Balfe incorporates elements of the original Harold Faltermeyer classic into something fresh while also directly using tracks from the massive 1984 soundtrack.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Is that a cheap trick? Maybe, but it\u2019s a matter of balance. When Bronson Pinchot\u2019s Serge shows up in a lame scene, one is reminded of the potential version of this film that\u2019s all callbacks and familiar bits. However, director Mark Molloy uses familiarity as seasoning instead of the whole meal. It may seem like faint praise, but there are so many iterations of this reboot \u2013 probably including the one almost once directed by Brett Ratner \u2013 that go for cheap jokes about cancel culture, generation gaps, and other beats that usually drag down recent films with older comedy stars. There’s refreshingly little of that here as the script keeps the plot moving in a manner that doesn’t call attention to the fact that it’s a series that skipped at least one entire generation.<\/p>\n
It helps a great deal to have supporting performers willing to play along. Murphy often comes to life when he\u2019s given fun sparring partners, such as acting opposite Wesley Snipes and Da\u2019Vine Joy Randolph in \u201cDolemite is My Name.\u201d Paige, JGL, and Bacon aren\u2019t quite that good, but they all understood the assignment here, not phoning it in like so many Netflix original supporting players. Bacon leans into his self-righteous villainy, and JGL grounds the film in a few moments when it really needs it. Paige is great but the writers admittedly run out of things to do with her, forcing her into the same arguments with her distant dad a few too many times. As for the returning heroes, Reinhold disappears for most of the movie, but Ashton delivers when he\u2019s called on to do so. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Not that long ago, a legacy sequel like \u201cBeverly Hills Cop: Axel F\u201d would have made a fortune at the box office over the Fourth of July weekend. But times have changed, and the long-awaited fourth film in the Eddie Murphy series is dropping on Netflix instead of in the multiplex. While streaming services sequels …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[25],"tags":[36,33,50,46],"class_list":["post-1409","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-comedy-movies","tag-action","tag-comedy","tag-crime","tag-netflix"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/us.celebrity2000.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1409","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/us.celebrity2000.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/us.celebrity2000.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/us.celebrity2000.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/us.celebrity2000.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1409"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/us.celebrity2000.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1409\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/us.celebrity2000.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1409"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/us.celebrity2000.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1409"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/us.celebrity2000.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1409"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}