I am not a fundamentally nostalgic person, but I'm aware to be part of the minority here. For most people, the entertainment of their childhood is shrouded by a veil of sacredness. That's why Michael Bay rattled so many people with his increasingly trerrible and chaotic takes on TRANSFORMERS and TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLE (which he produced), two 1980s cartoons people my age grew up with. The fondest memories I have of pop culture exploration happened between the age of 13 and 20 and consists in large part of watching 1980s and early 1990s action movies on VHS with my father.The Beverly Hills Cop series was one of these sacred objects for us, but as it is in danger of capsizing into movie oblivions, is it better enjoyed as a distant memory or is it worth reintroducing to a new generations of action junkies? I've watched BEVERLY HILLS COP II a couple days ago and tried to rekindle an old flame.
It's not necessary to see the Beverly Hills Cop movies in order to enjoy them. In this iteration, iconic cop Axel Foley (Eddie Murphy) is back in Detroit, working as a double agent. In California, Captain Bogomill (Ronny Cox), Rosewood (Judge Reinhold) and Taggart (Josh Ashton) are struggling with a mysterious string of hyperviolent bank robberies.When the Captain falls under the bullets in the line of duty on that case, the chaotic but kind-hearted Axel puts whatever he's doing in Detroit on hold and travels to California for a couple days in order to help his buddies solve the case. But wherever Axel Foley goes, an incredible amount of chaos ensues and the gorgeous scenery of the Beverly Hills landscape is about to be turned upside down.
One thing's clear after a late 2014 viewing of BEVERLY HILLS COP II: every actor in the movie sucks, except for Eddie Murphy. Substract the statuesque Brigitte Nielsen from that statement, because she sort of plays the part she always does (the cold-hearted Aryan woman), but otherwise everybody is stone-faced, staring into space like they're reading their lines from a teleprompter. I get it. Everybody but Eddie's expendable. The Beverly Hills Cop series is a talent display for his acting career. BEVERLY HILLS COP II is fairly well-written, I mean it's a mystery with legs and a couple slick action scenes, but it's Eddie Murphy-centric. Whoever financed and produced this movie put all his eggs in the same basket.
It's not necessary to see the Beverly Hills Cop movies in order to enjoy them. In this iteration, iconic cop Axel Foley (Eddie Murphy) is back in Detroit, working as a double agent. In California, Captain Bogomill (Ronny Cox), Rosewood (Judge Reinhold) and Taggart (Josh Ashton) are struggling with a mysterious string of hyperviolent bank robberies.When the Captain falls under the bullets in the line of duty on that case, the chaotic but kind-hearted Axel puts whatever he's doing in Detroit on hold and travels to California for a couple days in order to help his buddies solve the case. But wherever Axel Foley goes, an incredible amount of chaos ensues and the gorgeous scenery of the Beverly Hills landscape is about to be turned upside down.
One thing's clear after a late 2014 viewing of BEVERLY HILLS COP II: every actor in the movie sucks, except for Eddie Murphy. Substract the statuesque Brigitte Nielsen from that statement, because she sort of plays the part she always does (the cold-hearted Aryan woman), but otherwise everybody is stone-faced, staring into space like they're reading their lines from a teleprompter. I get it. Everybody but Eddie's expendable. The Beverly Hills Cop series is a talent display for his acting career. BEVERLY HILLS COP II is fairly well-written, I mean it's a mystery with legs and a couple slick action scenes, but it's Eddie Murphy-centric. Whoever financed and produced this movie put all his eggs in the same basket.
Very cool cameo, do you recognize him?
It's strange that BEVERLY HILLS COP II banks so much on Eddie Murphy because I'm pretty sure it was an pre-existing script that was re-written to include Axel Foley. The crux of the intrigue really doesn't involve him. It could've done without him if any of the other characters would show a little initiative. It's kind of a sneaky iteration of the magical n**** theory * (which I discovered in this terrific essay by Roxane Gay). The helpless white protagonists can't solve their case for shit, so they need help from their black cop friend who's unbound by manners of by the law itself (Foley says 2 or 3 times ''I wasn't always a cop''), in order to make a breakthrough, save their jobs and utlimately their lives. You could argue that BEVERLY HILLS COP II is about a brash black cop doing the mild-mannered white cops' dirty work in the name of friendship. Yeah, it's slightly racist.
Some things are better left in the past. If they appear to be pleasant from a distance, it doesn't mean that they're going to hold out to two decades of evolving social perspective and growing self-awareness. BEVERLY HILLS COP II is an object of the 1980s. It's not a transcendent movie like PREDATOR or the Rambo series. Not everything (or everybody) ages well. If I was disingenuous here, I'd tell you that movies like BEVERLY HILLS COP II are the reason why I'm not a nostalgic person at heart, that I know better than this, but I'd be lying if I said that I didn't expect it to be awesome. Time and innocence put whatever was a part of your childhood/formative years on a pedestal and sometimes the material is better left alone.
* I'm white, I can't say that word.
Some things are better left in the past. If they appear to be pleasant from a distance, it doesn't mean that they're going to hold out to two decades of evolving social perspective and growing self-awareness. BEVERLY HILLS COP II is an object of the 1980s. It's not a transcendent movie like PREDATOR or the Rambo series. Not everything (or everybody) ages well. If I was disingenuous here, I'd tell you that movies like BEVERLY HILLS COP II are the reason why I'm not a nostalgic person at heart, that I know better than this, but I'd be lying if I said that I didn't expect it to be awesome. Time and innocence put whatever was a part of your childhood/formative years on a pedestal and sometimes the material is better left alone.
* I'm white, I can't say that word.