Tag Archives: Eddie Murphy

Netflix Movie Review: Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F

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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.

Netflix Movie Review: You People

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The new Netflix movie “You People” has a positive aspect – in trying to address the awkward guilt that white people sometimes have with black people and the awkward resentment that some black people have toward white people. Most of this awkwardness is made humorous – and some of this works, some of this does not work. The main negative aspect of this screenplay, co-wrote by Jonah Hill is that the relationship between Jewish and overweight Jonah Hill, who plays Ezra, and Lauren London who plays Amira is not at all believable.

This story is kind of like an attempted comedic version of “Guess Who is Coming to Dinner”, released in 1967, starring Sydney Potier, Spenser Tracy, and Katherine Hepburn. It is not fair to compare these two movies, mainly because the eras between 55 years ago and now are so different, but the main reason is that Guess Who is Coming to Dinner is a drama and You People is a comedy.

The other flaw here is that Eddie Murphy is in this movie and is never really funny. Murphy comes off as both bored and bland throughout his entire role. This is a big problem when your main comedic well-known star is never funny. Murphy plays Amira’s father Akbar, and along with Ezra’s mother Shelly, played by Julia Louis-Dreyfus – they create the main obstacles in the dating and marriage of Ezra and Amira. Through rude comments by both of them, and in the case of Shelly, her trying too hard to understand and appreciate black people, comes off as bigoted rather than supportive. Some of this is funny, but too much of this can be just awkward, and too awkward is never funny.

The acting in this light comedy is mostly good and includes David Duchovny, who pulls off the most awkward scene where he tries to sing at a piano – even though his singing is extremely off-key. Duchovny seems very out of place in this role. Nia Long plays Fatima, Amira’s mother, and also seems like she is barely in this movie mostly sleepwalking through her role.

Despite the flaws, this movie has enough positive aspects including message, and funny moments to give it a passable review and a mild recommendation. The Rotten Tomatoes rating of only 45 is once again, dead wrong.

Amazon Prime Movie Review: Coming 2 America

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Available on Amazon Prime, the sequel to 1988’s “Coming to America”, “Coming 2 America” has been released. Unfortunately this story committed the #1 cardinal sin of any comedy movie – it is just plain not funny. Not only is this film surprisingly unfunny, considering the first movie and the cast, it is also too long and very boring in too many areas. One would have thought after almost 33 years since the first film was released, that a better story idea would have been created and a much better screenplay would have been written. This is nothing more than a bad movie, highly unfortunate considering the cast and the quality of the first movie.

The cast is mostly the same, with the addition of Leslie Jones who plays Mary Junson who had a son with Prince Akeem (played by Eddie Murphy) 33 years earlier, during a drunken evening in Queens New York. Wesley Snipes plays the leader of another African nation that is threatening war with Prince Akeem’s country if one of his daughters or new son do not marry into this family. Other than these 2 new characters, there is nothing new here and definitely nothing funny, during the entire 2 hours. I actually remember feeling amazed at how boring and unfunny this movie was, with no surprises or new ideas during the entire run.

Amazon spared no expense with the sets and wardrobe with this lavish film, but unfortunately they raced through and commissioned a bad script, skipping over the obvious re-writes and creation of a better story that actually had some laughs or anything interesting. This movie was a slow moving nightmare to sit through and I was very happy when it was finally over. Odds are high that this sequel will ruin this franchise for good and I doubt there will be another sequel after this one.

I agree with all the very low ratings on Rotten Tomatoes – 47%. and IMDB 5.6 and do not recommend this mostly bad movie.