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Review: Beverly Hills Cop II (1987)
Eddie Murphy returns to the role of Axel Foley in the follow-up to the 1984 blockbuster Beverly Hills Cop. The triumvirate of director Tony Scott along with producers Don Simpson and Jerry Bruckheimer—and don’t forget Paramount—responsible for last year’s megahit Top Gun bring us Beverly Hills Cop II. A film that is more of a loud, noisy, crude, frenzied monstrous rock video which might be mistaken for a Sylvester Stallone actioner.
Foley returns to the city of swimming pools and movie stars in the wake of a brazen crime spreee. The culprits nearly kill a cop (Ronny Cox). Upon the Detroit lawman’s arrival, he finds his California comrades (John Ashton and Judge Reinhold) have been removed from pursuing an investigation of the crime wave by the chief (Allen Garfield) who have reassigned the pair to ticketing moving violators.
Foley cajoles, coerces, and convinces his cop chums once again—old habits never die, they just continue in sequels—to help him pursue an investigation—albeit an independent and unauthorized one. Their search leads them to a shooting club owned by a slick, shady European tycoon (Jurgen Prochnow), a racing track owned by same, and the Playboy Mansion; thus allowing for a cameo by Hugh Hefner and gal pal Carrie Leigh.
Murphy’s nemesis again is an uber wealthy Euro trash businessman whose diction is flawless and his demeanor implaccable. Prochnow (or maybe his agent) is no doubt hoping for an opportunity to make him more accessible to mainstream audiences. Something which obviously didn’t happen with his being among the cast of David Lynch’s adaptation of Dune just over two years ago. Here Prochnow is doing nothing more than chew the scenes as a watered-down Bond villain. It’s a wonder he hasn’t been cast as a 007 nemesis.
Beverly Hills Cop II has a few in-jokes which allude to the fact that the first film was once devised as a Stallone vehicle, chief among them: Reinhold’s digs has posters for Rambo: First Blood Part II and Cobra on the walls; and Prochnow’s moll is portrayed by Stallone’s wife, Brigitte Nielsen.
Tony Scott brings nothing notable to this overlong rock video.Murphy’s perfermance here seems to make his work in the first film almost worthy of an Oscar nomination. This time Murphy does little more than arehash of his performance in the first film. He seems to zoom through his scenes like the Ferrari he tools around in during his brief time in the Motor City—which he hands over to a fellow lawman (Paul Reiser in a sizable cameo)—without allowing us much of a chance to hear the jokes clearly. Maybe Murphy didn’t find the screenplay, based on a story which he is credited with having had a hand in crafting, was of high quality. Perhaps Paramount and he are hoping for repeat business which will enable moviegoers to hear lines they missed hearing in their first viewing.
Robert Baum is Currently a Bryn Mawr, PA-based film afficanado and pop culture junkie.
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