Beverly Hills Cop III (1994)

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Remember in “Live Free or Die Hard” when it became apparent that the every man we knew we John McClane was gone? In the first movie he was frumpy and nearly bleeding to death being forced to walk on broken glass. In “Live Free” he’s leaping out of exploding cars, and taking huge dives. This is Axel Foley’s ultimate undoing from the every man cop to the action figure superhero. In the first movie he’s using his wits and clever use of improv to sneak in to corners of the underworld.

Here he spends twenty minutes saving victims in a malfunctioning carnival ride. He does so by mounting the tops of the carts, and leaping from one to the other effortlessly, ultimately ending with helping two stuck children. This is the same Axel Foley? Why would they allow for such a radical and ridiculous transformation? This is the point where John Landis approaches the material with no consideration to the first two films offering such a generic flat tone. All semblance of goofy clown Axel Foley is missing in favor of a much sterner and serious police officer who is dead set on performing more acrobatics and fighting than anything else.

When his boss is killed, Detroit cop Alex Foley finds evidence that the murderer had ties to a California amusement park called Wonder World. Returning to Beverly Hills once more, Foley reunites with Detective Billy Rosewood to solve the case. Along with Billy’s new partner, Jon Flint, they discover that the security force of Wonder World is actually part of a counterfeit money operation headed by park manager Orrin Sanderson.

While the “Beverly Hills Cop” movies aren’t masterpieces, they’re at least consistent where Eddie Murphy is allowed to compensate for Axel’s lack of combat prowess with his ability to talk his way in and out of most situations. Shockingly, Axel is approached with a lot more sternness than he was in previous outings in the series. Murphy was in kind of a rut during this period and had been aiming more for serious fare, and it reflects on this last film where Axel is kind of a wet sponge. Sure he’s given a romance sub-plot but there isn’t much beyond the same old mishaps and some weak action set pieces. Hell, even Judge Reinhold looks kind of bored here.

“Beverly Hills Cop III” is probably the weakest of the series yet, relying on more of the same rather than developing the character organically. It’s sad because the movie leaves Axel Foley so stagnant.