Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F

Screened on Netflix.

For the most part, I enjoyed this. It's not exactly the highest praise or the highest bar, but I'm at least satisfied this was better than 1994's Beverly Hills Cop III, which was, I think most would agree, an abomination, especially after the highs of the first two installments.

The original Beverly Hills Cop, starring then 22-year old Eddie Murphy in his first lead role, is to me a perfect film. It blended action, comedy, style and music in a way that showed the 1980s in the most accurate way I can recall for most films of the era. I was 9 when the original came out, and 10 when it finally departed theaters after a months-long run covering two calendar years, and yet to this day when I throw it on, it transports me and my own experience of the decade like no other 80s film does.

With this fourth installment, much is done to recapture that feeling, especially in the casting by bringing back the likes of Judge Reinhold, John Ashton, Bronson Pinchot and Paul Reiser. The familiar Harold Faltermeyer score is here in abundance as well, reworked by composer Lorne Balfe, and the top tunes from the originals (The Pointer Sisters!) are used here to good effect. There are action scenes aplenty, though I'd argue they were dressed up to look bigger than they actually are, while not distracting enough to make it a problem. Style this go-around is a toss-up. Obviously any modernizing attempted here is softened by the throwback feels and references sprinkled throughout, but it's not a solid criticism because who is this film made for? It's certainly not kids of our modern era, so the filmmakers basically do the best they can here in balancing the old and the new; whether it works or not is definitely up for discussion. As for the comedy, well, I chuckled a few times (versus looking away as I did with the third installment), a far cry from the original. But lightning truly only strikes once (twice if you're truly lucky), so expectations have to be kept in check. Nothing was ever, ever going to surpass the original, a truly ace film. One of the best sequels ever made, Psycho II, was in the same boat. It tried, and its great all its own, but didn't reach those same heights as its predecessor.

Is Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F perfect, or even close to it? No, that's obvious and nearly impossible. But ultimately the majority of the film was entertaining, and it really was nice to see this cast back together again. To me, perhaps other than a different director who may have had a deeper connection and appreciation for the original two, to help this ring the nostalgia bell a bit louder, I think they did the best they could have in bringing that magic back to the screen. There are bad decisions in here, no question, particularly the thankfully short-lived but still somewhat painful leanings towards the dramatic attempted in the middle act. But they also get enough right to make this a recommended watch for those who enjoyed the original.

Ultimately it comes down to whether the filmmakers could achieve the nearly impossible task of taking us back 40 years like no time had passed. That doesn't happen here. And yet despite where this doesn't work, along with the film's other faults, I was entertained and enjoyed myself. I just wish, despite the massive-for-a-streamer budget of $150 million, that Netflix could've avoided turning this into "a Netflix film" instead of an "old school theatrical" like the original that achieved so much more, nearly half a century ago.