‘Axel F’ is the fourth installment in the ‘Beverly Hills Cop’ franchise, streaming on Netflix and starring Eddie Murphy as Axel Foley, a Detroit cop solving crimes in Beverly Hills
By Dana Barbuto/Boston Movie News

After 40 years, Eddie Murphy is still so Axel Foley, walking chaos in a Detroit Lions jacket, shaking down bad guys in the Motor City. It’s nice to see the roguish smile and hang with him again in “Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F,” though everything four decades later seems less energetic. Even the best pitchers lose a little off their fastball. Murphy is 63 now, and things slow down when you get older unless you’re Tom Cruise.

“Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F” comes from the minds of director Mark Molloy, writers Will Beall (“Bad Boys: Ride or Die”) and the duo of Tom Gormican and Kevin Etten (“The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent”), and megaproducer Jerry Bruckheimer, who knows a thing or two about making blockbusters (“Top Gun,” “Bad Boys”), and dusting them off decades later. (Fun fact: Bruckheimer is a Michigan native).

Eddie Murphy as Axel Foley, John Ashton as Chief John Taggart and Judge Reinhold as Billy Rosewood in "Axel F," about a Detroit cop solving crime sin Beverly Hills.
Eddie Murphy is Axel Foley, John Ashton is Chief John Taggart, and Judge Reinhold is Billy Rosewood in “Axel F,” which is about a Detroit cop solving a crime in Beverly Hills. (Netflix)

It’s been four decades and three movies (but no one counts the third; this movie even gets in a dig) since we first met Axel. When we catch up with the “Detroit Motor City shit magnet,” he’s about to foil a locker-room heist during a Red Wings game. In typical Axel style, he leaves a trail of crashed cars, broken windows, and other destruction as he pursues the fleeing robbers from behind the wheel of a snowplow. “Goddamn Foley,” mutters Captain Jeffrey Friedman (Paul Reiser, reprising his role) as Bob Seger’s “Shakedown” from the original film plays over the action. That song and Glen Frey’s “The Heat is On,” which opens the movie (“Neutron Dance” makes a cameo, too), helps those of us who grew up in the Eighties return to the world of “Beverly Hills Cop” and remember what it felt like to laugh at Murphy’s shenanigans, like the banana in the tailpipe bit. Grammy-winning rapper Lil Nas X sings the new theme song, “Here We Go!” I guess that’s considered a modern update.

Still street-smart, savvy, and able to get out of handcuffs like nobody’s business, Axel returns to Beverly Hills to investigate a threat against his estranged daughter Jane’s (Taylour Paige) life. She’s an attorney defending an accused cop killer, but she’s also stumbled on some big-time police corruption. Axel enlists his old cop friends Taggart (John Ashton) and Rosewood (Judge Reinhold) to help him find a missing memory card from a dash cam. The footage, of course, will expose all the wrongdoing. 

Axel’s quest sees him moving from one precarious situation to the next, with a group of goons seemingly always in pursuit. He infiltrates a Mexican cartel’s drug operation, breaks out of a jail lockup, and steals a police chopper—all in a day’s work to flush out a crooked cop and hopefully reconnect with his daughter.  The strained daddy-daughter dynamic is supposed to add a layer of emotional heft, but the stakes never feel high. There is no doubt about how this story plays out.

Newcomers to the cast are Kevin Bacon as the Rolex-wearing Captain Grant and Joseph Gordon-Levitt as Detective Bobby Abbott, Jane’s former flame. The ex-boyfriend setup turns out to be a fun-ish launchpad for Murphy. Bronson Pinchot also returns to his part as Serge, the flamboyant art gallery owner. Pampered pooches, Kardashian lookalikes, and a Mercedes license plate that reads “Pre-Nup” serve as sight gags on a cruise down Rodeo Drive.

Axel Foley is one of the greatest comedic roles Murphy has played. The first film held the No. 1 spot at the box office for 14 weeks in 1984, and Daniel Petrie, Jr. even snagged an Oscar nomination for best original screenplay. Molloy, directing his first feature, certainly includes plenty of nods to the earlier films, but an action-comedy that coasts along only on nostalgia without any real danger or laughs is missing the spark that made the character so iconic in the first place. 

‘Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F’

Rating: R for language throughout, violence, and brief drug use

Cast: Eddie Murphy, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Taylour Paige, Judge Reinhold, John Ashton, Paul Reiser, Bronson Pinchot and Kevin Bacon

Director:  Mark Molloy

Writer: Will Beall and Tom Gormican & Kevin Etten

Running time: 115 minutes

Where to Watch: Streaming on Netflix July 3

Grade: C+