Beverly Hills Cop II (1987)

Sorry, this movie sucks

Each character in this movie — down to the smallest one — is an individual rather than a type, prone to spontaneous changes of mood and sometimes amusing outbursts of pettiness or ill humor.

It is neither dumb nor smart enough to be fun, and spends way too much time with its boring human characters.

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

Continuing my plan to watch every Eddie Murphy movie in order, I come to the first sequel of his career Beverly Hills Cop 2Plot In A Paragraph: Alex Foley (Murphy) returns to Beverly Hills to help track down the Alphabet Bandit.Much more action orientated than its predecessor, sadly they forgot to add the jokes. Surprising since Murphy has a writing credit. This sequel could have been wrote when Sly Stallone was still attached to the first movie. There are amusingly a few nods to him in this movie.Whilst entertaining and fun enough, my main problem with this movie is Murphy is really annoying at times. This is Foley from the first movie speeded up x 10, with the volume at maximum!! He is an outright jerk at times. All he seems to do is shout at people (the construction workers, the secretary at the gun club, the door man at the strip club, the secretary at the playboy mansion) to get his own way. In the first movie, Murphy loudly played the race card to get a room at an exclusive Beverly Hills hotel, this time, he cons some construction, whose foreman probably lost his job over it. Considering he gave that address to the bad guys at the gun club, the owners were lucky it was not shot up!! The stupid scene with the secretary and the bag of vitamins, his loud under cover character, the stupid Johnny Whishbone, I need to add, all these worked for me back in the day, and I thought they were funny!! Less so 30 years later. Amazingly Murphy isn't the most annoying person in this movie!! That goes to Gilbert Gottfied!! Man do I hate that guy!! He is one irritating dude!! Of the other cast Reinhold and Ashton are clearly having fun and I don't think Bridgette Nielsen has looked hotter in a movie, she is the most interesting villain in this movie, whilst Juergen Prochnow is weak, Dean Stockwell (Who I love as Al in Quantum Leap) does not make a convincing bad guy either. An entertaining enough action movie, but not a great sequel to a classic movie Audiences turned out in droves as Beverly Hills Cop 2 grossed $158 million at the domestic box office (only Fatal Attraction and 3 Men & A Baby grossed more) to finish 1987 the 3rd highest grossing movie of the year.

Often criticized as a not-so-good sequel, it earned practically the same money at the B.O. than the classic first movie, which of course it's the best from the "Beverly Hills Cop" franchise, no doubts about that, but the second one is still good in its own way.After the good job he made for the Simpson / Bruckheimer team in "Top Gun", Tony Scott was hired on the spot to helm "Beverly Hills Cop 2", with a bigger budget than the previous film & featuring almost the same cast & crew, but obviously, Scott added its own style to the film, way different than Martin Brest, which infuriated some of the "Beverly Hills Cop" purists.As a commercials and videoclips director, Scott was well-known for his flashy and glossy visual style, fast pacing, quick editing and over-the-top action, and that was the expected final product for "BHC2" and for sure, he delivered it even beyond expectations.It have more action than the first one, but the comedy situations (and timing) still dominate the screen and the higher budget is noticeable as much as the polished visual style of the whole, which was an improvement over the first.Eddie Murphy is back on his definitive role as Axel Foley, after the critical panned "The Golden Child", this time also as a co-writer and with him are back too: Judge Reinhold & John Ashton (the "Laurel & Hardy" of the Beverly Hills Police Department, both with more screen time and enhancing Murphy's acting and the general comedy tone of the movie), Gilbert R. Hill & Paul Reiser (as Inspector Todd and Jeffrey Friedman, respectively Foley's Chief & partner from Detroit, both hilarious), Frank Pesce (the cigarettes' smuggler from the first which appears as Robert Pastorelli's nephew, even if he looks older) & Ronny Cox (in an extended cameo role reprising Lt. Bogomil in a break of shooting "Robocop"), together again for another ride.The new additions to the cast, performed it superbly, with the Berliner Jürgen Prochnow playing the eerie main villain, Maxwell Dent and the Danish Brigitte Nielsen playing his sexy bodyguard / henchwoman, Karla Fry in a clear homage to the James Bond's villains, especially the Christopher Walken / Grace Jones evil duo in "A View to a Kill", which was released 1 year before "BHC2" went to production. Eddie Murphy himself is a great fan of the James Bond movies, hence the "Bond-ish" villains presented here.Allen Garfield as the grumpy Chief Harold Lutz; Dean Stockwell as Carlos Cain; Paul Guilfoyle, from future "C.S.I." fame, as the arms' dealer Nikos Thomopolis; Gilbert Gottfried as Dent's accountant, Sidney Bernstein and a cameo from Hugh Hefner complete the main cast, which also features a "blink and you'll miss it" appearance of Coppola's regular supporting player, Glenn Withrow as Willie, one of Karla's henchmen.The major problem about this sequel it's the screenplay which wasn't as good as the original, it was a bit lazy developed and the movie works much better in the comedy and action sequences alone, than trying to making sense. So in the first movie, Axel and Lt. Bogomil said goodbye to each other in good terms, after Foley helped the L.A. Police to catch the drug dealer / smuggler Victor Maitland, but nothing suggests that they will became as close as being fishing together (the same for both Rosewood and Taggart), but after two years only they're all best buddies in the world, Axel knows his daughter and Bogomil's house and later in the movie, we see Axel entering Rosewood's place for the very first time. It was way more logical for Axel being closer to Rosewood, after the events of the first movie, than to Bogomil. The sudden "Rosewood goes Rambo" gimmick is an in-joke about Sly Stallone being the first choice for "Beverly Hills Cop" and the fact that Stallone's then wife, Brigitte Nielsen, was cast as the blonde bombshell, Karla Fry, in the movie and we can even glance a poster of "Cobra" starred by both Stallone & Nielsen and released a year before, when Axel is using the phone in Billy's room. This decision also upset some of the fans, but i find it harmless to the general plot.About "The Alphabet Crimes", that was a bit childish and corny decision to use as the villains' device, it looks a bit out of place in an 80's action flick, suiting more that campy Batman TV Show from the 60's, something the Joker or the Riddler could have done.A plot hole occurs when "The Alphabet Crimes" were called by that, when only Adriano's was robbed at the beginning of the movie, even before Bogomil was shot, so with only an envelope with an "A", the apparently incompetent Beverly Hills Police Department, led by Chief Lutz and his right hand, Biddle, they know that the city will have more crimes following the alphabet letters ? Johnny Wishbone, they're not...Besides all the plot problems, visually and technically, "Beverly Hills Cop 2" it's a competent directed, staged and photographed film, with lots of humour, fast paced action scenes that keeps the viewer totally entertained. The soundtrack is as good as the first one, with Bob Seger performing the main theme "Shakedown", written by Harold Faltermeyer (the composer behind the famous "Axel F." theme) & Keith Forsey, a song that became a number-one hit on the Billboard Hot 100 and was nominated for both the Academy Award and Golden Globe Award for Best Original Song.In short, it lacks the novelty and freshness of "Beverly Hills Cop", but it's still a very good sequel and an underrated film in the 80's cannon of action movies. Scott was always way ahead of its time and this movie was re-apreciated in later years as one of the first flicks that influenced the way action movies will be in the future... What is a shame is that there wasn't any action movie made in the last 20 years, that can even match what the late great Tony Scott did here...

Official Review: Some guys wear trench-coats? They have machine guns? Something to do with a housing development? I don't know, this movie is hard to remember. I know for a fact I've seen this movie more than once, and relatively sober each time, but that's it. There is a shoot out at the end, but who knows why. I don't know why the bad guy is bad or what the bad guy does that's bad, also I don't know if there is more than one bad guy, like Brigitte Nielsen may or may not be a bad guy, y'know cause I don't remember clearly. In my defense I have an otherwise very good memory, and I don't want Beverly Hills Cop 2 to be indicative of my memory skills, it's not my fault, it's this piece of sh*t movie.

The original was one of the biggest films of 1984, and Simpson and Bruckheimer had a massive hit the year before with Scott's Top Gun, so this was fool proof, and only an idiot wouldn't green light the sequel, so it's more of the same, but bigger in every sense, but it's lost a little bit of the first films soul.Ronny Cox only comes back for a cameo, so he gets shot at the beginning, and this prompts Foley to return to Beverly Hills. He re-teams with Taggart and Rosewood, who isn't as timid as he was in the first film, and has a penchant for weapons, because this would make his character funnier, right?Obviously there is a sub plot involving gun running, Jurgen Prochnow, Bridgitte Nielsen and alphabets, so it's down to Foley to wisecrack his way to solving the crimes.This film could have just been Murphy running along the beach, swearing every few minutes and laughing, and it still would have been a huge hit, because every once in a while, the planets align, and Hollywood could make a critic and crowd proof movie.This was in instance of that. Scott was huge, he made Cruise a star. Simpson and Bruckhiemer did the same, Murphy was the biggest thing in Hollywood, and the original was massive.Nothing could go wrong.It's not brilliant by any means, in fact, sometimes the film seems downright lazy, more or less copying set pieces from the original, like the final act and the set piece where Foley pretends to be someone else in order to gain access to somewhere.But its flashy, sometimes funny, and it's always sunny in Beverly Hills, and you cannot help but love the infectious laugh.You realise after an hour just how bland it is compared to the original, but you'll enjoy it never the less.