Riding in on a wave of nostalgic goodwill, Eddie Murphy is back in the role that turned him into a Hollywood superstar, and his streetwise, rule-bending, motormouth cop is every bit as cocksure and reckless, fans will be relieved to hear, as he was in 1984. And it's not just Murphy's Axel Foley who's back. The old gang is here, too, with Judge Reinhold and John Ashton reprising their roles as the buttoned-up Beverly Hills detectives who, in the course of the first movie, turned into unlikely pals and allies for Murphy's brash out-of-town cop.
Forty years on, Murphy's Axel is so iconic that it's easy to forget what an impact his performance made at the time. Brimming with cheek and charisma, he turned what could have been yet another routine cop movie into a freewheeling fish-out-of-water comedy with added thrills. You only have to watch lumpen 1986 police thriller Cobra to see how Beverly Hills Cop might have ended up had an earlier choice for the role, Sylvester Stallone, played the lead. When attached to the project, Stallone had immediately set about toning down the story's humor. As we know, Murphy ramped it up.
