Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F Review

There’s an art to crafting modern sequels to movies that otherwise put a full stop on their stories way back in the ’80s or ’90s. Some nail it; many don’t. Fortunately, Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F is one of the former. Smartly assembled to feel like an authentic continuation of the original trilogy rather than an arbitrary reinvention of it (or worse, a toned-down, PG facsimile), Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F is vintage Eddie Murphy set to a vintage soundtrack.

When his defence attorney daughter is threatened with death unless she drops a case, Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F sees everyone’s favourite “Motor City s–t magnet” return to the now influencer-infested streets of Beverly Hills to unravel the conspiracy at play. The story from writer Will Beall (who, coincidentally enough, also co-wrote last month’s equally entertaining and equally… fourth Bad Boys: Ride or Die) primarily pits Foley against a crew of dirty cops and, yes, it could admittedly be cut from the cloth of any number of action movies made over the last four-or-so decades. To be fair, however, it’s a setup that’s distinct from the original three Beverly Hills Cop movies (which saw Foley take on drug smugglers, gunrunners, and counterfeiters), so it isn’t a superficial re-tread of any one of them in particular. Axel F does begin with an immediate homage to the opening moments of the original Beverly Hills Cop, reintroducing viewers to Axel himself as he cruises through Detroit in his slightly less crappy, blue Chevy Nova, but it’s a totally warranted indulgence that starts the movie off on the right foot.

Murphy appears entirely at ease as Axel Foley for the first time since 1994. In terms of his raw screen presence, he’s not as outright remarkable here as he was throughout his unimpeachable performance in 2019’s Dolemite Is My Name, but Murphy has effectively hooked straight back into what makes Axel Foley tick. Foley remains a savvy and streetwise detective and a masterful social engineer who’s still able to instantly invent brash and regularly hilarious new identities in the spur of the moment, but his overall attitude is authentically tempered by his age in 2024. Don’t get me wrong: Foley is still solving crimes by the seat of his pants here – he’s just a little wiser and a little more tired than he was last century. Importantly, Foley is also never the butt of the joke, nor sidelined from leading the story – and if you were as disappointed with Coming 2 America’s family-friendly overhaul as I was, rest assured that hasn’t happened here.

The roles for other returning characters from the original trilogy are mostly modest, but they reappear in nicely logical ways. Paul Reiser’s Jeffrey Friedman has a pitch perfect reintroduction, pivoting from his previous role as Foley’s fellow detective to his 2024 gig as Foley’s entertainingly exasperated superior officer. Judge Reinhold’s Billy Rosewood doesn’t get a ton of screen time, but Reinhold successfully brings Rosewood back as the sensitive, Sylvester Stallone fan we remember. John Ashton is also back as a now-unretired John Taggart, and it’s nice to see him again even if his role is a little undermined by his surprising uncooperativeness (which seems somewhat discordant with the fact that he and Foley have supposedly been friends for 40 years at this point). Bronson Pinchot’s brief but triumphant return as Serge is a major highlight.

The key new characters this time around are Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s Detective Bobby Abbott, and Taylour Paige as Foley’s daughter, Jane. Gordon-Levitt is likeable as a committed and observant detective who respects Foley’s reputation without being intimidated by him. Paige gives an assertive performance too, although her backstory is quite light so it’s a little harder to sympathise with her disdain for her dad’s concern (estranged or otherwise, being dangled out of a multi-storey parking garage is probably a good enough reason for your uncommonly talented, crime-solving dad to want to help you uncover the culprits).

Axel F doesn’t reinvent the series’ brand of action, but I honestly wouldn’t have wanted it to. The combat and car chases may come off as a little conventional in comparison to fellow buddy cop blockbuster Bad Boys: Ride or Die, but anything more would have risked turning Axel F into a video game-inspired aberration rather than something that felt authentically like a continuation of the Beverly Hills Cop saga. As far as I’m concerned, director Mark Molloy (helming his first feature film) has nailed the brief in this regard. Bad Boys directors Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah may have pushed the boat out when shooting the fantastic action sequences of Ride or Die – with their experimental and flair-filled approach expanding on the already highly kinetic style Michael Bay established in both Bad Boys and Bad Boys II – but Axel F remains sturdily in sync with its own ’80s and ’90s predecessors. As Taggart barks to Rosewood late in the piece, “Shoot bad guys!” Sometimes that’s all I really need my action heroes to do, and there’s an old-school, pre-shakey cam sincerity to simply having shot-up stunt performers tumbling down stairs to a pulsing synth soundtrack that I find endearing.

Molloy does nudge the needle a little at one stage with a well-executed and ludicrously low altitude helicopter chase, but he softens the sheer improbability of it by having Foley and Abbott spend the entire sequence loudly terrified of it all going wrong. It eventually does (naturally), but that just brings on a strong contender for the most unpredictable cameo appearance of all time. You’ll know it when you see it; trust me.

Likewise, Lorne Balfe’s synth-laden score feels like it’s been lifted directly from 1984. It certainly sounds in harmony with composer Harold Faltermeyer’s fabulous work on the original Beverly Hills Cop and Beverly Hill Cop II, and it plays a huge role in keeping the atmosphere of the ’80s alive in Axel F. There are also several energising, retro songs throughout that, yes, are unashamedly resurrected from the original films. However, in the words of The Pointer Sisters, it’s hard to say just how some things never change. There’s only one clanger in the mix, and that’s Lil Nas X’s new track ‘Here We Go!’ Built specifically for this movie around Faltermeyer’s iconic ‘Axel F’ riff, ‘Here We Go!’ sits fine upon the film’s credits, but the low tempo trap track is a poor fit for the final car chase. For a moment, it feels a little like one of those YouTube edits where someone puts unexpected replacement music over your favourite movie scenes to waste your time and bandwidth. It’s a small blemish, but it’s an odd one considering Axel F is so rooted in ’80s reverence everywhere else.