By Gary

In Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F, Axel Foley is still a detective with the Detroit Police Department. He is older, somewhat wiser, still has the same wisecracking humour, but still the same hellraiser that bends the rules and tears up the streets of Detroit.

His boss is his former partner Jeffrey Friedman (Paul Reiser) has now risen to the rank of Deputy Chief.

Axel Foley returns to Beverly Hills when he receives news from his old friend Billy Rosewood (Judge Reinhold) who is now a Private Investigator that his estranged daughter Jane Saunders (Taylour Page) who is a defence lawyer has been threatened by a group of criminals after agreeing to defend an accused cop killer who claims he is innocent.

Axel runs afoul of a group of gangsters pursuing Jane and have now kidnapped Rosewood. The situation worsens when it is revealed that Captain Cade Grant (Kevin Bacon) of the Beverly Hills Police Department is in charge of the criminal organisation and is willing to do anything to prevent being exposed.

Axel manages to find an ally with Detective Bobby Abbott (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) who agreed to help him and also returning to being dragged into the mayhem is John Taggert (John Ashton) who is now a Chief after returning to the Beverly Hills Police Department following the events of the third movie it was stated that he had retired.

It’s been a while but here we have it another Beverly Hills Cop film, it feels like films made in the 80s and 90s are getting sequels, prequels or new versions made of them.

Eddie Murphy did really well returning to his classic role as Axel Foley. It was easy to worry about the third movie seeing him back in action.

It was good to see Judge Reinhold, John Ashton, Paul Reiser return for the fourth movie. Bronson Pinchot returns in a small cameo as Serge from the first and third movie.

Joseph Gordon-Levitt is always enjoyable on screen and he was good as Detective Abbott who would become an ally to Axel Foley.

Kevin Bacon who is the lead villain as Captain Cade Grant chewed up every scene with his expensive snake like charm. Taylour Page as Jane Saunders did well and you could see that she had parts of her estranged father’s personality.

This is a decent enough action film but if it didn’t have the Beverly Hills Cop name attached to it would it even have been made? Same characters, same sound track it’s absolutely fantastic.

I really enjoyed Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F. I was very pleasantly surprised and I was glad to see that the movie just didn’t wring out every last drop of ideas.

The movie kept everything going and I had a lot of fun. There was new humour as well as a nod to the original movies by taking a trip down nostalgic lane with the humour that the audience really enjoyed. 

In all honesty I reckon outside of the original, this is the best. It was laugh out loud funny at times.

My Rating: 7/10