''Look Mr. Foley, I appreciate you've been doing this a long time. But the world has changed a bit''
No truer words have been spoken, and this single line of dialogue pretty much sums up my entire thought process for this wholly unnecessary sequel. Indeed the world has changed a bit, and some might dare to say, not for the best. The original movie virtually came out in a different universe from today. Can a movie like 'Beverly Hills Cop' survive in our present politically correct era?
Plot-wise, things aren't really that good. Essentially what we have here is a very bog standard storyline of Axel Foley teaming up with his adult daughter (Taylour Paige) to take down the bad guys. How many times have we seen that or heard about potential plots doing that? Foley's daughter is a defence attorney representing a man who has been accused of killing a cop. Thing is, she thinks he was framed and is coming under threat from the cartel. Meanwhile, Billy Rosewood (Judge Reinhold) has found evidence to back this up, but gets kidnapped by the cartel. All this obviously brings Foley back to Beverly Hills/LA to meet up with his estranged daughter (cos you gotta have family discord to up the stakes), and her ex-boyfriend (also a cop), to try and work together.
Yeah so this all sounds very much like another 'Lethal Weapon' sequel really, muh family. I really hated the angle that Foley is now partnering up with his daughter, I mean Jesus! How stale, and of course, this includes her boyfriend for all that juicy family back and forth; so predictable. As said, Foley hasn't been a good dad to his daughter Jane, so we have to go through all the inevitable fighting and emotion until we reach the even more inevitable family reconciliation at the end, ugh!
Naturally the old cast are wheeled out for this (John Ashton and Paul Reiser, yet no Ronny Cox), and oh boy do they look old. Look, don't get me wrong, it's nice to see the old cast back, but they're all too old, just like Murphy, it's embarrassing. They even drag Bronson Pinchot back as Serge for Pete's sake. And this is the key issue here, well one of many: Eddie Murphy is too old, too chubby, and not as sharp-tongued as he used to be. There, I said it. Hell, Foley still wears the same outfit he's been wearing since the original! Come on now. But don't get me wrong, the action sequences are actually pretty good here. The main reason being, they haven't used CGI, but actually used live-action stunts and real vehicles in real locations. It's quite clear that entire precincts/blocks had been closed off for many sequences...and did they actually use a real helicopter downtown?!
So visually, the action is very good, very impressive looking. The problem is, like Murphy, it actually feels a bit slow and, believe it or not, almost too slick for its own good. The original movie, like many 80's action flicks, had a gritty vibe about them. They looked dirty, the filming felt more off the cuff, gorilla style, and vehicles looked more masculine, realistic and beat-up. These days, all these modern cars look too shiny and modern; they look plastic and like they don't have any real weight behind them. This leads me to probably the only single funny line in the entire movie. Foley gets arrested and stuck in a cop car, but as he does, he complains that the car doesn't look like a real cop car and more like a Fisher-Price toy (LOL!). Obviously, a callback to him complimenting the interior of a cop car in the original movie.
This movie really does feel a bit cookie-cutter truth be told. The plot plods along step by predictable step, from one location to another, as the trio slowly begin to unravel the dastardly crime cartel that we all knew was led by Kevin Bacon right from the moment he walked on screen. I mean, come on guys! Really?! This movie is just so obvious, ugh!! Yes, Kevin Bacon (looking and acting suspiciously like Gavin Newsom) is a police Captain but also the main villain. Who would have thought it? There's also an aging women in a car with a small dog that looked and acted suspiciously like Nancy Pelosi.
Despite this movie actually looking the business, having the classic soundtrack and beats to coolly play over the developing drama, it's all too sterile and ultimately formulaic. You can tell they had run out of ideas for this simply going by the movie's title! And that old cliché of having a popular character team up with a son or daughter for a sequel is just bottom-of-the-barrel stuff. Yes this is way better than the watered-down 'Beverly Hills Cop III', there is that. But this can't come close to the original or even the sequel (which are both full-on adult action flicks, no apologies). All this really offers is much better looking action sequences due to improvements in tech and stunts over the decades. The rest is essentially a set-piece highlights reel of the first two movies.
5/10
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