TL;DR – This is a film that entirely knows what it wants to be and completely nails that delivery. How much you will like that will depend on how you gel with the premise.

Post-Credit Scene – There is no post-credit scene.

Disclosure – I paid for the Netflix service that viewed this film.

Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F Review –

Well, here is a blast of the past, and even in our reboot-obsessed culture, this feels like a deep cut. Well, that is, until you hear the music, and then you 100% understand why. However, it had been 30 years since the last entry, and that is a lot of ground to make up for. There is only so much that synth can do, but let us see if there is a story that can work, given the shifts in the police force since the last outing.

So, to set the scene, Axel Foley (Eddie Murphy) is still a cop who is completely fine with causing mass destruction to capture his crooks in Detroit. However, times have changed; a snowplough is indiscriminate in its chaos, and this is the last time Jeffrey Friedman (Paul Reiser) can cover for him. But when an old friend (Judge Reinhold) lets him know that his estranged daughter Jane’s (Taylour Paige) life has been threatened in Beverly Hills. Axel takes the first flight back to his old stomping grounds, and they discover that they might be more alike than they want. They both know Detective Sam Abbott (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), but Billy is missing, and it might be time to cause some mayhem in Beverly Hills.      

In many respects, this film was a wild ride because it feels both like a time capsule that was opened up from the 1980s but also has all the clear trimmings of a modern legacy film. That is a combination that could have led to disaster, but hey, hats off to the filmmakers, they make it work. Part of it is because Axel Foley is such a generally likeable character that you are happy to just go on another adventure with him. However, more than that, the legacy elements are added with such joy that you get this feeling of a bunch of friends getting back together.

I did have a fear near the start that much of the film was just going to mine some sort of flat comedy about how ‘Beverly Hills is so different now’, and to be fair, there is some of that there. But the second that Kevin Bacon walks onto the screen with giant, ‘I am the main villain’ energy, you know this is going to be a blast. Kevin Bacon provides that other pole of energy that the film needs, and it was right for the film not to be coy about who the real villain is. This gives the film the space to do what it does best: give Axel a new partner in the always entertaining Joseph Gordon-Levitt, get into shenanigans that cause damage, give lip to old friends, and arrest some fools at some point. However, I will say I like the little nods to Shrek at one point, and it is clear that the Director really likes the Pierce Brosnan era of Bond because there were multiple homages throughout the film.      

Look, I don’t think it would be out of turn to say that this is a very boilerplate narrative in that I doubt there will be a single surprise that happens. Will that little nugget of information that Detective Sam Abbott used to fly helicopters be necessary at some point? You bet it. Do you think that after teasing it all film, they will wait for the best part of the film to drop the classic theme? Of course. Is the person you think will be kidnapped get kidnapped to force a resolution? Is the Pope Catholic? But what the film misses in originality, it makes up for in sheer confidence, and you kind of have to respect chutzpah. There is even one cameo I would have never seen coming, and I laughed so much when it made an impact.  

While I very much enjoyed my time with this film, it was not a perfect outing. I was frustrated at the writing for Jane for a lot of the movie. She only really exists to impede different characters at different points in time during the film. The character only had one moment where she really excelled, which was undercut by a fight that felt so forced that you could hear the narrative gears ground to a halt and another moment where it looked like they were going to subvert expectations only to reinforce them immediately. It never wholly gets in the way of the film, but it is noticeable.   

In the end, do we recommend Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F? Yes, we did. Look, it was just fun from the opening destruction through Detroit, to the closing calamity in Beverly Hills. If you liked Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F, we would recommend to you Ocean’s 8.

By Brian MacNamara: You can follow Brian on Twitter Here, when he’s not chatting about Movies and TV, he’ll be talking about International Relations, or the Solar System.

Have you watched Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F?, let us know what you thought in the comments below, feel free to share this review on any of the social medias and you can follow us Here. Check out all our past reviews and articles Here, and have a happy day. 


Credits – All images were created by the cast, crew, and production companies of Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F
Directed by – Mark Molloy
Screenplay by – Will Beall, Tom Gormican & Kevin Etten
Story by – Will Beall
Based on – Beverly Hills Cop by Danilo Bach & Daniel Petrie Jr.
Music by – Lorne Balfe
Cinematography by – Eduard Grau
Edited by – Dan Lebental
Production/Distribution Companies – Don Simpson/Jerry Bruckheimer Films, Eddie Murphy Productions & Netflix
Starring – Eddie Murphy, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Taylour Paige, Kevin Bacon, Judge Reinhold, John Ashton, Paul Reiser, Bronson Pinchot, Mark Pellegrino & Luis Guzmán with Brendan Butler, Kyle S. More, Kenneth Nance Jr., Damien Diaz, Patricia Belcher, David Rowden, Jospeh Aviel, James Preston Rogers, Mark Pellegrino, Bria Murphy, Giovannie Cruz, Sean Liang, Nasim Pedrad, Sarah Abrell & Christopher McDonald
Rating – Australia: MA15+;