Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F - A Pretty Decent Sequel of the 1980s Entertaining Action Comedy Movies

Few months ago, I noticed this movie in the Coming Soon section of Netflix. It was a surprise for me cause I was not aware they were going to make the sequel after so many years. Anyway when it was finally released yesterday, I immediately gave it a try last night. Without further ado, here's more on the film.

Brief Story Line

Detroit Detective Axel Foley (Eddie Murphy - Coming 2 America, The Nutty Professor etc) was still making huge problem to the city whenever he was on the job. After hearing from his old friend Billy (Judge Reinhold - Fast Times at Ridgemont High, The Santa Clause movies etc) that his estranged daughter Jane (Taylour Paige - Zola, Hit the Floor TV series etc) was having trouble while defending a criminal, Axel decided to return to Beverly Hills and help her.

Axel later met with Taggart (John Ashton - Some Kind of Wonderful, Midnight Run etc) who was now the Chief of Beverly Hills PD and Captain Grant (Kevin Bacon - Leave the World Behind, Apollo 13 etc) from the Narcotics department. As he did some digging, Axel found out what Jane was working on might involve a large criminal organization. With the help from Detective Bobby Abbott (Joseph Gordon-Levitt - Project Power, 500 Days of Summer etc), the three of them tried to uncover the case.

So how would the story conclude? You could find out in this movie.

End of Brief Story Line

I remember watching the first and second Beverly Hills Cop movies during the 1980s which I enjoyed a lot. I thought they were hilarious especially with the distinct difference in methods between Axel Foley and his counterpart, the two Beverly Hills detectives Billy and Taggart. In addition, the films also got some cool action as well. But to be honest, I could not remember the main story at all as it has been so long and probably I was too young to understand the plot. Nevertheless, the memory of the fun was still embedded and made me excited to watch this latest installment of the series.

When the movie started by showing Axel Foley driving in a car along with the song "The Heat is On", I instantly felt nostalgic. And as the story progressed, I could see that it was not too complex. I could already guess where it was heading, even who the bad guy was. However, the journey towards the conclusion was filled with plenty of good enough action scenes involving car chase, gun fights, explosions and of course the creme of the crop, Eddie Murphy's comedic moments. It's nice to see that he has not lost his touch and I was quite entertained by his humorous scenes. And for 115 minutes, there was enough action and comedy to delight us. Btw there was no mid or post end credit scenes in here. 

One thing that fans of the series would enjoy was the fact that many of the original cast reprised their roles. In addition to the main characters that I mentioned above, there were also Paul Reiser (The Spy Who Dumped Me, Whiplash etc) as Jeffrey Friedman who was now the Deputy Chief of Detroit PD and Bronson Pinchot (Perfect Strangers TV series, Courage Under Fire etc) as Serge, although they were in smaller capacity. Oh I also noticed few familiar faces like Mark Pellegrino (Quantico TV series etc), Luis Guzman (Wednesday TV series etc) and another cameo appearance. Personally though, I was not too satisfied with Taylour Paige as she did not look too convincing as Jane and did not have good chemistry with her co-stars (but the scene when she was called by her father over the phone was really funny).

I read that this fourth movie had been in developments for many years with various names attached to direct like Brett Ratner and the duo Arbi & Fallah. But due to various reasons, they had withdrawn and Mark Molloy was appointed (which marked his feature film directorial debut). As far as debut go, I thought he did OK. The movie was co-written by Will Beall (Gangstar Squad, Aquaman etc), Tom Gormican and Kevin Etten (Late Show with David Letterman, Desperate Housewives etc). And it looked like critics were not totally against this as it got mixed review. I also saw the names of Jerry Bruckheimer who remained as the Producer, together with Eddie Murphy and Chad Oman.

Overall to me, this was a quite enjoyable film. I do not think it was the best in the series but I agree with critics that it was definitely not worse than the third. Those who have seen the previous films would be happy to see Axel Foley return and did not change his habit at all, still disregarding the regulations and "wreaking havoc" in Beverly Hills. It also have few 80s songs that I was of course familiar with. Sadly I was also reminded how long it has been since the first movie when Taggart mentioned to Axel about their 40 years of friendship. In the end this probably would be enjoyed mostly by fans of the series. So if you are like me, then I think you would have good time watching this. But audience hoping for a great action comedy might find this to be just so so. 

Mike's movie moments rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars