Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F

Axel Foley returns to Beverly Hills because the heat is on, on the street, inside your head, on every beat. And the beat's so loud, deep inside. The pressure's high, just to stay alive.

'Cause the heat is on.

Oh-ooh-oh-oh, oh-ooh-oh-oh! Caught up in the action, I've been looking out for you. Oh-ooh-oh-oh, oh-ooh-oh-oh! Tell me, can you feel it? Tell me, can you feel it? Tell me… can you feel it? The heat is on. Yeah! The heat is on-on, oh yeah. The heat is on. Burning, burning, burning. Oh, it's on the street. Wooo-hooo!

The heat is... on.

Axel Foley is somehow still a Detroit police detective, despite a long history of loose cannon police work, that kind that while it may get results on occasion, it also usually causes a massive amount of damage to public and private property, and most likely injures hundreds of people in the process.

Our story opens at a Detroit Red Wings game, where we are shocked to discover that, despite his well-documented history as a chaos agent/human tornado with a badge, The Detroit Red Wings decide to risk allowing Axel Foley to attend a game. This proves to be unwise, as while buying a ridculously priced plastic cup of Miller Genuine Draft, the ever-keen-eyed super-cop spots a group of guys with narrowed eyes, all dressed in trenchcoats, as they alternate between hiding behind pillars and sneaking through the crowd on their tiptoes, y'know... being real suspicious. Bad move, scumbags, because this puts Axel in Destruct-o-mode, and then he does what he does best. Investigates. And also silly voices. These fuckers never had a chance.

Unfortunately, while trying stop these lawbreakers from stealing a handful of sports memorabilia, Axel basically destroys the city, and as we all know, Detroit is just not a place that can afford that kind of destruction.

Still, Axel fails to see the problem here. After all, were it not for him, those criminals could've gotten away with some rando fucking hockey player's gaudy-ass ring or possibly a sweat-stained jersey or something. Crime is crime, you guys, and it must be stopped, no matter how many citizens may be killed in the process. But despite this totally reasonable stance, Axel's actions ruin the career of his long time friend, Deputy Chief Jeffrey Friedman, who is forced to retire in disgrace.

With an entire city now mad at him, Axel decides to head out to sunny LA, CA… again… where he hopes to relax and turn his frown upside down. Maybe put a few bananas in some tailpipes, or run a scam on some unsuspecting person just trying do their job by confusing them with funny voices, or possibly reconnect with his previously unmentioned estranged adult daughter, who knows, it's LA, right? City of dreams. Anything is possible. Swimming pools. Movie stars. Maybe he'll even ruin the careers and lives of the handful of LA policeman who have thus far survived being his friend while he's out there, y'know, if there's time.

One such friend, Billy Rosewood, plans on picking Axel up at the airport. But before he does that, he has “one more stop” and it has to do with the investigation he’s currently working on. This means that Billy is about to become a plot device. Sure enough, Billy is soon framed for the murder of a police officer, and then he gets kidnapped by the cartel.

Also, Axel has no ride from LAX, which sucks.

Unfortunately for the good people of Los Angeles, Axel is a police officer, so he naturally, he believes the law doesn’t apply to him. Despite having no authority or jurisdiction, he’s soon hunting for Billy, even though doing so could not only ruin the career of his only other friend in the city, detective John Taggart, but it could also force Taggart to retire in disgrace. But what are ya' gonna do? That's life with the badge, kids. Another one bites the dust in the name of justice, amirite? Because unfortunately for Taggart, not to mention anyone who might be out and about in Los Angeles, the heat is on. Oh yeah. The heat is on-on. Soon enough Axel is using funny voices to confuse random people and causing a swath of fire and destruction on Rodeo Drive, which, admittedly, is kind of deserved. Soon after that, Axel and his daughter, an LA DA, are in a shoot-out on Wilshire Boulevard. It’s at this point that Axel gets his first clue, which leads him to suspect…

The cops might be the bad guys.

GASP!

(I know! Shocking!)

After that, the film gets into it, and I'm shocked to report that, well… shit gets real. The bullets fly. The quips zing, the helicopters crash, and the film’s cast of mostly senior citizens do their best to jump away from explosions in a kind of slow motion that is only partly due to Hollywood magic and is mostly due to their advanced age. Despite claiming to only be an hour and fifty-eight minutes long, many years later, everything is wrapped up with a neat little bow, as bridges are mended, and we all get to enjoy one last metaphorical banana in a tailpipe.

The cinematic equivalent of going to a Rolling Stones or Kiss concert, and discovering that the most dangerous band in the world is now just a bunch of fat old men wearing unflattering clothes, and that the concert is starting early because both the audience and the band alike would prefer to be in bed by 9:30, Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F is a horse that should’ve been put out to pasture, and then shot, decades ago. The film is clearly aware of this too, as it has a running gag about how most guys Axel’s age are slowing down… but not Axel. He’s virile, and definitely not wearing any spanxs.

Blatantly ridiculous in the way that only action movies from the 80s about cops and soldiers can be, Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F is a sad and nakedly obvious attempt to squeeze every single last fucking drop of blood left in this franchise's stone. It's weaponized nostalgia from start to finish. The soundtrack reuses songs from the previous films, and honestly, I was shocked at how well I knew them all. I had no idea these songs were still playing somewhere in the back recesses of my mind, but they are. Apparently, I really am still burning, doing the Neutron Dance… But that having been said, the sad version of Axel F is a crime against humanity. 

Honestly, this is all my fault. As Tay-tay says: "It's me. I'm the problem." I’m the dumbass who sat down and watched this film. I knew what it was going to be. You don’t need to be told any of this, because none of us should need to have it proven to them that this film is bad and boring, and worst of all, kind of pathetic. There is no world where this film could've turned out to be anything but this.

This movie is bad.