Review: "Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F" – Mark Molloy

After waiting thirty years for a new installment of the classic franchise, Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F arrives as a disappointment to fans of the series. Despite a strong supporting cast, elevated budget, and thirty years for star Eddie Murphy and producer Jerry Bruckheimer to think of a comeback story, nothing in this sequel comes alive in its 2-hour runtime.

Penned by Will Beall (Gangster Squad, Bad Boys: Ride or Die), it feels more like an episode of his TV procedurals such as Castle or Deputy, than a triumphant return for an iconic film character.

The story moves along ably, but as the characters on-screen bounce around the names of characters off-screen that you've never seen or only appeared once, it becomes difficult to care about the outcome of anything happening. There are no great reveals or twists, just a procession of plot points that play out as you’d expect in a detective story. You’re simply going on the ride with Axel and his partners.

In the role of Axel Foley, Eddie Murphy does show some of the comedic brilliance that instigated the franchise in 1984's inventive Beverly Hills Cop. But the years have not been as kind to the character of Axel.

Foley’s antics are as not as endearing as a sexagenarian than as a twenty-something outlaw. His disregard for everything (and everyone) around him doesn’t sit as well with a person a few years away from a pension. It just seems stupid, rather than charming.

The supporting cast provides solid work in their perfunctory roles – Taylour Paige as estranged daughter Jane, Joseph Gordon-Levitt as his temporary partner Detective Bobby Abbott, and Kevin Bacon as the nefarious crooked cop, Cade. The only time anyone rises above stock character status is during the interplay between former lovers, Paige and Levitt.

The returning cast of Judge Reinhold, John Ashton, Paul Reiser, and Bronson Pinchot all bring a smile to the face when they appear, but there are no new depths or revelations about veterans, only nostalgia. The best moments are from franchise newcomers, particularly Nasim Pedrad, Sean Laing, and Affion Crockett who brighten up proceedings with their limited screen time.

First-time filmmaker Mark Molloy lacks the visual flair and kinetic imagery of predecessors Tony Scott and Martin Brest. The action scenes including shootouts, car chases, and a helicopter chase lack real tension. If the sequences of cars colliding with one another and bullets spraying past the protagonists have no tension, then there is no impact, and they undercut the stakes the story is attempting to establish.

All he knows to do is point the camera at Murphy and let him go, and that does occasionally work. But, those rare moments of comedic brilliance in Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F only make you wish the other parts were working better. To offer a degree of brilliance is worse because it only makes you more wishful for something better.

I don’t know whether there’ll be another installment in the franchise, but if they do I hope they take the pieces that work in Axel F, mainly Murphy's comedic chops and the Paige/Levitt chemistry, and structure a better production around them. It would be a shame for the character to go out on such a disappointing swan song.

Rating: C–

Watch if you enjoyed: Beverly Hills Cop III (1994), Ride Along (2014).