Beverly Hills Cop – Axel F review: It's like we're stuck on a ...
If you’d landed some time in the 1990s and told my generation that the decade our future selves would most fetishise would be the Eighties, you’d have been locked up. After all, was this not the great cultural slum of the late 20th century?
An era where the only thing more hideous than the fashion was Western culture’s chest-thumping maximalism?
My, how the world has turned in recent years. The time of neon and Reaganomics seems positively quaint by today’s standards. Oh, for the days when only celebrities did cocaine, and geo- political tension meant a bit of Argie-bargy in the Falklands.
And so maybe we should be a little more forgiving of films such as this Netflix reboot of Axel Foley, Eddie Murphy’s wise-talking Detroit detective.
Director Mark Molloy’s franchise instalment prances gracelessly through the door marked “Eighties nostalgia” – not the least bit concerned that if you picked it up and gave it a tap you’d get a hollow sound.
Take one key action scene in the third act of Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F.
Taylour Paige, Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Eddie Murphy in 'Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F'
Our hero and his new partner in crime-fighting, Detective Bobby Abbott (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), are being chased by bad guys. They dash up on to a rooftop where Axel bullies Bobby into commandeering a helicopter to make good their escape. Bobby reluctantly agrees to take the controls, despite being a bit rusty.
They’ve even found something to do in the cast for that most evergreen of Eighties visages, Kevin Bacon
No sooner have the propellers begun to whirl than the soundtrack suddenly morphs into a pastiche of the theme tune to Airwolf, the quintessential helicopter action series from that hallowed era.
Elsewhere, we’re never far from the customary synthesisers of the 1984 original, chirping away as our hero struts into the next motor-mouthed escapade.
And why don’t we unbutton Judge Reinhold’s shirt just a bit more so we can see his Guns N’ Roses T-shirt? They’ve even found something to do in the cast for that most evergreen of Eighties visages, Kevin Bacon.
As comforting as the era’s aesthetics might seem – and I admit slabs of Glenn Frey’s The Heat is On sure does the job during a car chase – they jar with what is otherwise a contemporary backdrop to this fourth outing for Murphy’s character.
Axel complains about the price of a hotel room in Beverly Hills. A veteran cop moans that they can no longer afford to live in a city they took a bullet for in the line of duty.
These are the more recognisable moments in this world. Outside of that, it’s like we’re stuck on a particularly foul-mouthed theme-park ride.
At 63, Murphy is unreasonably fresh of face and just about carries off a role that once upon a time confirmed his promotion from the stand-up clubs into Hollywood mainstream.
Axel is still doing his thing on the mean streets of Detroit when he finds out that his estranged daughter Jane (Taylour Paige) has been the subject of a roughing-up by Beverly Hills mobsters.
Paul Reiser and Eddie Murphy in 'Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F'
Whoever is behind it has taken umbrage to her working as free legal aid defending a small-time hood framed for killing a cop. And they also kidnapped Axel’s old mucker Billy Rosewood (Reinhold) for snooping around.
Axel jets out and comes to Jane’s aid – but her welcome for the father who was never around is frosty. Nonetheless, they team up in search of suspected corruption from inside the Beverly Hills Police Department.
Help is at hand in the form of Gordon-Levitt’s wholesome local police detective (and, as luck would have it, Jane’s ex).
Murphy and Gordon-Levitt never seem able to find the right chemistry
Some passages of Axel F are serviceable action fodder but when the film flexes its 1980s heritage too forcefully or old faces from the heyday are wheeled out (Bronson Pinchot’s Eurotrash gallerist Serge should probably have stayed in his box, you feel) it has a flattening effect on things.
More annoyingly, you notice that a better film possibly lurks within Will Beall’s story if you were to strip away all that referential fluff and Murphy’s by-numbers mugging – that of a gutsy young female attorney going up against corrupt cops in a changing metropolis.
Paige’s performance is noticeably a level up from her co-leads, too. Contrast this with Murphy and Gordon-Levitt, who never seem able to find the right chemistry needed for this brand of high-speed bickering.
Perhaps this is a symptom of acting on a set where the brief has been to share the frame with continuous winks and nods to a film that was released 40 years ago.
Two stars
