We are living in the era of the “legacy sequel”, it seems all sorts of properties that began in the late 70s or 80s are getting sequels and for the most part they have been rather successful at the box office. This is the part that frustrates me with streaming services, a film like Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F has been gestating for years, it even went to becoming an a TV series that failed to take off but after the success of Top Gun: Maverick, Ghostbusters: Afterlife, and the Creed films it seems Hollywood execs have decided maybe a new Beverly Hills Cop film might be a good idea after all. Then factor that this summer isn’t all that stacked with tent-pole films you’d think Netflix would take a chance and give Axel Foley his time on the big screen like he deserves, but nope this new film is exclusive to Netflix and while I get their motivations, I still think they are stupid for missing out on the potential added income, just like they’ll most likely forego releasing the film on physical media. It is an interesting time in film and I don’t feel it is a good thing, streaming may be huge but most of the films that are direct to streaming whether it is Netflix, Prime, Apple and so on…most of these films just are not very good and unfortunately it seems audiences are fine with settling for mediocrity. Sure there have been a few gems that are good but this reminds me of the days on VHS with the straight to video market, sure some were good but the majority of the films were crap. So where does this new adventure with Axel Foley land? Well sort of in the middle.
The film opens up with Axel (Eddie Murphy) some how still employed with the Detroit PD and he is on an undercover operation at a hockey game and it should come as no surprise that things go wrong. We get a car chase with Murphy in a snowplow causing havoc as some familiar songs from the earlier films play as though to remind us what franchise we are watching. I got to address how this just didn’t work for me, as much as I love the classic songs it just felt forced and I immediately started to worry if this is how the rest of the film would go. It was great seeing Paul Reiser reprising his role now as Deputy Chief Friedman. Man this had me missing Gilbert Hill chewing out Foley, it seems so minor but he was part of the dynamic that made the previous films fun (at least the portions in Detroit) but I wasn’t ready to throw in the towel on the film yet.
As for the main plot of the film, Jane (Taylour Paige) who is also Axel’s daughter, is a defense lawyer that has a case that can potentially bring down some corrupt cops and she has her life threatened. Also, fan favorite Billy Rosewood (Judge Reinhold) is a PI and he goes missing and his disappearance seems to be connected to Jane’s case. This of course brings Axel back to Beverly Hills to help solve the case and hilarity and action soon follow.
Okay not to nitpick but I feel Axel would have been kicked off the force or retired by this point and I could believe he’d start up his own PI agency. And the “tension” between Axel and his daughter Jane just doesn’t work for me, I would have preferred she was like a hot head impulsive cop like her dad but whatever this is the story we got.
John Ashton is back as Taggart and he is now the Chief of the Beverly Hills PD, he does a good job with the role and it seems like a pretty seamless transition for him. Then there is Kevin Bacon, he’s playing Captain Cade Grant who may as well be wearing a sign that says “look at me I’m the big bad guy”. Normally I love just about everything Kevin Bacon is in and especially just last week MaXXXine released and he was fantastic in that, but here the script just gives him nothing to work with and that’s a shame. Now I know it seems like I have nothing good to say about this film but there really is an addition I loved, Detective Bobby Abbott (Joseph Gordon Levitt) who is also a former boyfriend of Jane and he reluctantly works with Foley to keep Jane safe.
It takes this film a bit to finally hit a rhythm and when it does it is pretty fun. I really like the look of this film, it got away from there sterile look we had in part 3 and this has the warmth that we saw in Tony Scotts take on the franchise. The score thankfully also has a familiar ring to it despite having a different composer this time around. While Murphy has obviously aged since the third film came out 30 years ago, it seems he slid back into this role with ease (especially with rumors about how much of his dialogue was improvised). I still can’t help but feel the film made the mistake of having Billy missing through so much of the film and if Bobby was supposed to be the filler character it would have been fun to see Axel mess with him some, especially since the character used to date his daughter. Just seeing the wasted opportunity is frustrating.
The big action sequence in the film involves a helicopter chase and it showed that Netflix wasn’t afraid to throw some money at this film. What my biggest problem with this film is it felt a little too restrained. With talk of them already working on a 5th entry in the franchise all I can hope for is that they give us a film that is leaner, one that remembers the core audience has aged and so has Foley, lets see him be a great detective and be the funny guy. If Netflix is willing to spend the money, bring in some high profile writers and a director. This film shows that people still have interest in the character, now give the audience something to remember. While this film was better than the third it still has nothing on 1&2.
Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F is streaming exclusively on Netflix.
