Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F - Content or Quality?

A Review of the Most Recent Remake

When my dad watched rated R movies during the day, he kept the remote handy, his finger hovering over the fast-forward button in the likely event boobs popped up on the screen.

In the 80s, boobs were basically required.

I’m not complaining, but Dad’s fast-forward reflexes are pretty much all I remember about the first Beverly Hills Cop film when it came out on VHS.

It wasn’t one of my favorites and obviously I wasn’t the targeted audience. But my dad liked it, and so did most everyone else. So when the latest sequel dropped—40 YEARS after the original—I was curious enough that I decided to watch them both back to back.

Just Another Reboot?

Hollywood’s creative bankruptcy has brought us a deluge of sub-par sequels and reboots of previously successful franchises, and I was worried Axel F would be another one of them. After all, Eddie Murphy’s Coming to America sequel was less than stellar.

HOWEVER, he righted the ship with this one in a big way. For one, he used nostalgia perfectly, even goi…