Chalk me up as cautiously optimistic. After seeing the new trailer for Eddie Murphy’s return to the famed Beverly Hills Cop franchise, coming soon to Netflix, I’m starting to allow myself to believe that Murphy, director Mark Molloy, and screenwriters Will Beal, Tom Gormican, and Kevin Etten possess enough respect for the first two movies in the saga (forget Beverly Hills Cop III, completely), and are delivering another worthy story with this beloved character. Watch the trailer, and let’s dig into what it shows.
Legacy sequels are nothing new. So long as a star is willing to return to the Scream franchise, or step back into the world of Bad Boys (like Will Smith and Martin Lawrence are doing), then Hollywood series will continue. So here we get Eddie Murphy, trying on the Detroit Lions jacket that’s so iconic, Tom Hardy even stole it for a Venom sequel. As was the case in the best Beverly Hills Cop stories, Axel Foley (Murphy) finds a reason to leave Detroit and travel to California to solve… some sort of crime. There’s no real indication what the case will be in Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F, but there are plenty of guns involved.
And a lot of new faces. The trailer starts off with Foley locking horns with a new adversary within the ranks of the Beverly Hills police department. Captain Grant will be played by Kevin Bacon, who looks to be bringing a trace of malice to his relationship with Foley. And that’s part of the playbook. Axel’s never really welcome in Beverly Hills, even though he’s trying to solve whatever case is vexing the department at the time. But he usually finds an ally on the force, and this time out, that character will be played by fellow series newcomer Joseph Gordon-Levitt.
At the same time, these legacy sequels only work if you start to bring back classic characters. And so, the trailer for Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F ticks off a litany of familiar faces, starting with Paul Reiser, moving on to the great John Ashton and Judge Reinhold, and finishing off with Bronson Pinchot. Serge is in the movie, friends! What a country!
Now, there’s reason to be skeptical. The Beverly Hills Cop franchise has been stagnant since Tony Scott’s fantastic Beverly Hills Cop II. The third movie in the series was a disaster. And the attempts to relaunch the story as a TV series fell flat after filming a pilot. But bringing a movie to Netflix could be the breath of fresh air that the series needed, even if executives were hesitant about letting Murphy star in the role. I mean, what? You don’t have a Beverly Hills Cop movie without Murphy. So just create a new series. Maybe that will happen after Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F, but for now, we can wait for this film in 2024, and enjoy the best movies on Netflix while we bide our time.
