Mark Harrison | On 07, Jul 2024

Director: Mark Molloy
Cast: Eddie Murphy, Taylour Paige, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Kevin Bacon, Judge Reinhold
Certificate: 15

Sometimes legacyquels come off like nostalgic Superbowl TV spots that have somehow mutated to feature-length films. Every January, big stars will reprise characters you recognise for short skits designed to flog new cars or home insurance. And as a debut feature from ad director Mark Molloy, Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F may be the most literal version of this. But actually, that’s just fine here.
 
This belated fourth instalment finds a way to send motor-mouthed Motor City cop Axel Foley (Eddie Murphy) from Detroit to Beverly Hills yet again, this time because his estranged defence-attorney daughter Jane (Taylour Paige) is being threatened by baddies. There, he finds old police pals Rosewood (Judge Reinhold) and Taggart (John Ashton) investigating the murder of an undercover officer, and he teams up with Jane and new partner Abbott (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) to get to the bottom of another conspiracy.
 
Eddie Murphy’s stand-up special Delirious may mark the peak of his comedic power. In one memorable moment at the end of a long routine about a family barbecue, someone in the audience shouts “again”. Murphy incredulously asks: “Do the shit again?” He gets another big laugh, but also unknowingly foreshadows this sequel and many others throughout his movie career.
 
And so, the watchword for this fourth instalment 30 years in the making is “again”. It slides efficiently into the spot practically reserved for it in franchise rankings – below the first two directed by Martin Brest and Tony Scott, but above the abysmal John Landis-directed threequel.
 
On the face of it, the legacyquel markers are present and correct – regular franchise foils Reinhold and Ashton are back, there are extended cameos from returning actors Paul Reiser and Bronson Pinchot, and all but a banana in the exhaust pipe in the way of nostalgic callbacks. There’s also a new generation of younger characters, ranging from Kevin Bacon’s unctuous cop to Paige and Gordon-Levitt as new allies, clear signs that they’re updating the franchise for modern times.
 
But they haven’t, really. From the retro Simpson/Bruckheimer production logo down, this is an unabashedly retro sequel. The script (credited to Will Beall, Tom Gormican and Kevin Etten) basically plays like a Beverly Hills Cop sequel they might have made in the 1980s rather than the 2020s, complete with unreconstructed attitudes and problematic gags.
 
Having taken this long-gestating project from a theatrical release to a TV show to a Netflix original movie, Murphy seems no wearier from the process. The character is still using the fronts and tricks learned in his “misspent youth” to outwit cops and suspects and witnesses and receptionists and the star seems energised by the material. As with 2021’s Coming 2 America, no one can accuse Murphy of phoning this in. The plot is the most arbitrary vehicle for these shenanigans, but you’re quickly reminded of the star power behind the wheel.
 
Speaking of vehicles, there’s a huge array of good chase scenes. Never content with mere car chases, Molloy’s fleet includes a snow plow, a golf buggy, a lorry and, most memorably, a helicopter. The best car-related set piece takes place with no cars actually moving. As befits the franchise and its title character, the action has a way of zagging where other movies zig.
 
Sure, it still looks and feels like an overgrown Superbowl ad, but it bullseyes the comedy and the action so often that it’s churlish to hold its threadbare plotting and nostalgic prodding against it. Happily, the film gives more time over to Axel’s new foils than his old sidekicks, which keeps things lively, and the plot only does as much as it must to connect the comic skits and chase sequences. Heck, composer Lorne Balfe’s triumphant Harold Faltermeyer-referencing score glues more of the bits together than the story does.
 
Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F knows what it’s about and excels at that level. No matter what Glenn Frey sings in the opening title sequence, some of the heat has inevitably gone off in the last 40 years since the original. But counter to Part III, the jokes are often funny, the action is creative and surprising, and nobody is taking themselves or the franchise too seriously.

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