Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F (2024)

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It’s nearly impossible to discuss Eddie Murphy’s prowess in ‘80s cinema without starting the conversation with his role as Axel Foley in 1984’s Beverly Hills Cop. While his film debut in 1982’s 48 Hrs. helped draw the blueprint for the buddy cop genre, the comedian’s turn in Beverly Hills Cop essentially begat action-comedies as we know them today.

Following a string of middle-brow family films for the better part of the last two decades (with 2006’s Dreamgirls somewhere in the mix), Murphy has attempted a sort of comeback the past few years. In that time, we’ve gotten both highs and lows, from a surprisingly meaningful performance as blaxploitation icon Rudy Ray Moore in Dolemite Is My Name to an appearance opposite Jonah Hill in the pseudo-edgy You People to reviving his character for a legacy sequel in Coming 2 America. Good or bad, none of these can be considered a true return to form for the actor who once owned an entire decade.

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A legacy sequel in its own right, Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F keeps its predecessors in sight but doesn’t totally rehash their ideas. Perfectly blending fan service with a new plot that can stand on its own within the IP, this fourth installment does well to match the tone of the first film especially, pairing incredibly high stakes with healthy doses of comedy — almost as though the comedy is somehow masking the pain or anxiety that comes with the high-stress jobs of its characters.

Like the first three movies, we begin our story in Detroit, catching up with Axel after three decades. His ripple is still being felt in California after all these years, especially since his estranged daughter Jane (Taylor Paige) is now working as a defense attorney in Beverly Hills. He’s summoned back to the West Coast after finding out that Jane’s life is being threatened by some pretty powerful people and his good friend Billy (Judge Reinhold) has gone missing. I don’t have to tell you that these two things may very well be connected.

Of course, Jane wants nothing to do with her father but is forced to work with him since he has certain connections that she may not. We’re also introduced to crooked cop Cade Grant (Kevin Bacon), along with Detective Bobby Abbott (Joseph Gordon Levitt), Jane’s ex-boyfriend whom she left due to her personal resentment to all cops. Levitt and Murphy’s chemistry might be one of the highlights of the film and certainly one of the things that carries us through a routine third act.

Along with Reinhold, we also get Paul Reiser, John Ashton, and the much-welcomed Bronson Pinchot back for more. These legacy characters are neither wasted nor exploited. But it helps that Murphy was always the one running the show. Even Reinhold’s Billy always served as a glorified minor character after the first movie.

Director Mark Molloy might be doing an impression of the original film the best way he knows how, but we’re able to feel safe in his hands simply because Murphy isn’t merely doing an impression of his character from the ‘80s. He impressively falls into the character without missing a beat and I had to remind myself that we hadn’t seen this level of performance from the actor in quite some time.

Foley has always charmed audiences by not representing good or bad cops — he’s always operated somewhere in the gray area, which is perhaps a difficult concept to endure in 2024. Underneath the action and comedy are conversations about the price of being a cop; treating it like an act of service without asking for anything in return. Yeah, when you save people’s lives, all you get is a ribbon, but you don’t become a police officer for the ribbons.

Written by Will Beall, Tom Gormican, and Kevin Etten, the script also keeps one foot in the ‘80s with paint-by-numbers plot points, from the father-daughter stuff to the car chases and shootouts. Not only does the director juggle all of these tropes exceptionally well without making them feel cheap but actually reaches a nostalgic pitch for the audience who remembers a simpler time for cinema. It’s easy to replicate the feeling of a classic movie but it’s much harder to create a new movie that you can easily envision existing without its progenitors, but Axel F does just that.

Unlike many legacy sequels which transpose older characters and storylines into modern-day society, Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F brings along many of the elements we loved from ‘80s action-comedies and Beverly Hills Cop specifically, such as the meathead lackeys, the pugnacious vernacular (during a shootout, Taggart calls a bad guy “cocksucker” and I had to think about the last time I’d heard that word in a new movie), and even the stylish montages through Beverly Hills. The town is basically the same as it was in 1984, just with more Pomeranians and smartphones.