Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F

By Matt Sheehan

✰½​ (out of five)

Synopsis: After his daughter's life is threatened, wisecracking Detective Axel Foley teams up with a new partner and some old pals to turn up the heat on a conspiracy.

Review: Hollywood is currently playing a nostalgia card with many big film offerings. This is extremely evident in the latest adventure with certain Detroit law enforcement export "Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F." They got some of the gang back together--Judge Reinhold, Paul Reiser, Bronson Pinchot and John Ashton--to remind you of... well, better outcomes. The cast, which also includes Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Kevin Bacon, doesn't help matters with a very bland screenplay, going through the motions of reading lines and collecting big paydays. Plus, they just look bored doing the recycled stuff. It's always great to see John Ashton get high-profile work, but I guess I'll have to rinse this out with him in "Midnight Run." But I digress.

The story involves crooked cops covering up illegal business they are conducting. It's not groundbreaking. But at one point early in "Axel F," a character quips to Axel that things are different now. With so many social issues going on today involving law enforcement overstepping it's boundaries, there is a nugget of a good story to tell with that. Maybe it's looks different but is just the same. The 1980s were filled with plenty of shoot first, ask later type explosion action. With Eddie Murphy even changing as a comic and maturing, bring that real-life into Axel's story here. Maybe Axel's changed but gets sucked back in to the same old nonsense, or perhaps he does need to change. We get a little bit of that through Axel's estranged daughter Jane (Taylour Paige) who coincidentally becomes an attorney in--you guessed it, Beverly Hills.

As you can see, there are plenty of opportunities to establish a statement. The original "Beverly Hills Cop" had some social undertones it was saying during the middle of the 1980s blow-em-up set pieces. The action in "Axel F" doesn't have the heat on to kick those up a notch. The callbacks to the previous films (I think one of the chase scenes goes past the mansion Axel cons his way into in "Part II") are run-of-the-mill, eye rolls.

Reinhold's Rosewood is prone to say, "You can never have too much firepower." They got all the weapons to fight a decent film out of the ideas, but they all end up as blanks shooting at air.