Beverly Hills Cop II ** (1987, Eddie Murphy, Judge Reinhold, Jürgen Prochnow, Ronnie Cox, Allen Garfield, Brigitte Nielsen, Dean Stockwell) – Classic Movie Review 6650

Eddie Murphy’s energy and charm are severely tested on director Tony Scott’s extremely inferior 1987 sequel to 1984’s great hit Beverly Hills Cop. Predictably, Scott mostly dumps the original’s comedy element in favour of unsubtle strong violence and lusty action.

This time Murphy’s Detroit cop Axel Foley returns to Beverly Hills and infiltrates a munitions smuggling gang. Billy Rosewood (Judge Reinhold) and John Taggart (John Ashton) need Foley’s help to investigate the near-fatal shooting of Chief Bogomil (Ronnie Cox) and an associated series of ‘alphabet crimes’.

Apart from Murphy’s appealing performance as Foley and the Oscar-nominated song ‘Shakedown’, nothing else about the film really works this time: the almost incoherent, unbelievable story, the preposterous characters, the tiresome performances, the feeble music score and the sledgehammer direction. George Michael won the Razzie award for Worst Original Song for ‘I Want Your Sex’.

Also in the cast are Jürgen Prochnow, Allen Garfield, Brigitte Nielsen, Dean Stockwell, Paul Guilfoyle, Paul Reiser, Gilbert Hill, Robert Ridgley, Brian O’Connor and Alice Adair.

The screenplay is by Larry Ferguson, Warren Skaaren, David Giler, Dennis Klein, the film is shot in Technicolor by Jeffrey L Kimball, produced by Don Simpson, Jerry Bruckheimer and Eddie Murphy, scored by Harold Faltermeyer, and designed by Ken Davis. The Paramount release runs 100 minutes.

There is plenty of strong violence and strong language with more than 30 uses of the F-word (as well as brief nudity); however, beware the much-trimmed TV version.

It was another mega-hit, costing $28,000,000 and grossing $153,665,000, plus $146,300,000 worldwide. Beverly Hills Cop III followed in 1994.

© Derek Winnert 2018 Classic Movie Review 6650

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