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‘Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F.’ Review: Eddie Murphy Works Hard to Act Game in a Sequel Made to Tickle Your Nostalgia
Eddie Murphy works hard to act game in a film that brings the series full circle: the product/schlock of the '80s meets the product/schlock of Netflix.
I’ve always thought the story of how the original “Beverly Hills Cop” came to be was significant — that it was conceived as a straight-up police thriller starring Sylvester Stallone, and then, once Eddie Murphy came aboard, it was turned into a comedy. Joseph Gordon-Levitt, in a beard that makes him look like an Oberlin philosophy professor, is Bobby, the LAPD homicide detective who used to be involved with Jane, and is therefore Axel’s Oedipal rival; this is what sets up the pair’s buddy-cop hostility. The scene in a cartel homie bar, with Luizmán as a drug runner singing karaoke, isn’t bad; if you squint, for two minutes you can almost pretend you’re in “48 HRS.” A helicopter escape sequence, with Bobby piloting the chopper along the ground, finds the right fusion of action and yucks.
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