The 4th installment of the Beverly Hills Cop franchise - "Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F" is not about movie making as much as it is about risk aversion. Producers are always afraid of losing money, or at the very least recouping their investment. Movie-making has always been a very risky business.
The 3rd Beverly Hills Cop movie in the franchise "Beverly Hills Cop III" was a big failure when it was released in 1994. The producers of this 4th film were clearly afraid of another bomb, so decisions were made before this movie was finally greenlighted, after 30 years since the last film.
The first idea was to make the movie streaming with Netflix, to avoid the huge distribution costs. Unfortunately, the next idea was to provide way too many small reminders of the first two movies, throughout this 4th installment. This included having the same music from the original film - especially during some of the chase scenes. Eddie Murphy, as Axel Foley is once again driving a huge truck during a chase scene as he did in each of the first two movies. The same mansion that was used in the shoot-out conclusion of the first movie was once again in this film. The same huge large-scale truck area used at the end of the second movie was used again in this one. Foley's decision to move to Beverly Hills based on a crime originating in Detroit happens again in this film. It seemed that any thoughts of originality for this 4th film were thrown out in favor of fear of losing money from producing another bad movie. The producers thought they had a better chance of success if they just repeated what worked in the first two movies.
As far as the acting, it was OK, but Eddie Murphy was not nearly as funny as he was in the first two films, another major problem with this 4th movie in the franchise. The comedy part of these films are the main reasons why the first film was such a big hit 40 years ago. Judge Reinhold returns as Billy Rosewood, John Ashton as Officer Taggart, Paul Reiser as Jeffrey Freidman, and Bronson Pinchot as Serge, who was also not nearly as funny as he was in the first film. The two new additions are Kevin Bacon as a corrupt police captain and Joseph Gordon-Levitt as Detective Bobby Abbott. The entire story was very run of the mill, with the addition of Axel Foley's estranged daughter played by Taylour Paige. Unfortunately there is nothing new in this plot that we have seen many times before in so many police dramas, with the expected shoot out at the end - in the same exact house as the first movie.
The Rotten Tomatoes ratings are a correct 65% and unfortunately, just like Murphy's last sequel, "Coming to America 2", released on Netflix in 2021, this attempt to awaken another movie franchise has failed. I do not recommend this movie.
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