Day 22 Beverly Hills Cop II (1987)

After exploding on to the screen in “Trading Places” and “48 Hours”, Eddie Murphy was a confirmed star. In 1984 however that status changed when Beverly Hills Cop came out. He became a superstar at that time and anything he wanted to do he was going to be able to do. Of course the studio wanted a sequel and it was inevitable that that would happen. Beverly Hills Cop 2 is a perfectly functional action comedy but it is not very well put together, and the story is not very interesting.

Most of the original cast is back for this episode and Axel Foley is now closer friends with the Beverly Hills cops. Of course there is interference from the new chief of the Beverly Hills Police Department played by Allen Garfield in another of his signature irritated little man rolls. The boss doesn’t want to listen to any of the cops that he didn’t hire. Including Ronny Cox’s Captain. The Catalyst for this story involves him being shot and Axel coming back out to Beverly Hills to investigate.

There is some falter all in Detroit as Axel attempts to avoid getting in trouble with his own boss by allowing one of his partners to drive the Ferrari that he is using in his undercover investigation. Paul Reiser play the inept partner and almost everything he does is designed for comic relief, which makes no sense since Eddie is the one with all the comic lines. Brigitte Nielsen, is the statuesque armed the if who carries out a series of heists that are intended to finance one big score and throw the cops off the trail with a set of coded alphabet clues. It never really makes much sense, but it doesn’t have to. The main attraction of the film is seeing Eddie fast talk his way in and out of trouble. He makes up a lie to get a house to stay in, he intimidates a secretary into giving him access to areas he is not supposed to see, and he even gets her to give him two hundred dollars for an invented child.

Tony Scott was the director, and there are plenty of explosions, car chases, and his signature yellow palate filter in several scenes. He may have been watching some John Woo films, there were even pigeons flying around in the climax. The chase scenes were sloppy with several continuity errors. Heck even in the opening heist, the limo that delivers the thieves has a different license plate from shot to shot. Bog Seger cowrote the theme song “Shakedown” with Harold Faltameyer, who had success with the first film, it is also Bob Server’s only number one hit in a long career.

So I saw this when it came out, enjoyed it for the moment and then forgot about it. The movie was a big summer hit, but mostly on the vapors of the first film. Eddie got away with it because he had other hits coming, but It’s hard to catch Lightning in a bottle twice.