Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F

LOGLINE: Detective Axel Foley (Eddie Murphy) is back on the beat in Beverly Hills. After his daughter’s life is threatened, she (Taylour Paige) and Foley team up with a new partner (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) and old pals Billy Rosewood (Judge Reinhold) and John Taggart (John Ashton) to turn up the heat and uncover a conspiracy.

Cue the synthesizers — Eddie Murphy is back as Axel Foley. It’s been nearly 30 years since we last saw the fast-talking Detroit cop, but he’s finally heading out on a new case. Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F sees Axel on patrol back in Beverly Hills, with friends both old and new — and maybe even a family member. As producer Jerry Bruckheimer (Top Gun: Maverick, The Rock) tells Tudum, “Eddie’s such an incredible artist. He can do drama, he can do comedy –– he can do anything. And he’s the same Axel Foley. He’s still on the streets. He’s still doing what he does. Obviously with age you get wiser. But he still has the twinkle in his eye.” 

In other words: Axel’s only grown more potent in the last few decades. And so has Murphy. Director Mark Molloy tells Tudum: “Some of the funniest moments in Axel F are when Eddie’’s improvising. For me, a big part of my job was to create the right environment, cast the right people around Eddie to allow him to do what he does best.”

Among those people is franchise newcomer Joseph Gordon-Levitt as Bobby Abbott, a BHPD officer who operates a little differently than Axel. For Gordon-Levitt, playing opposite Murphy was “really a bucket list thing,” he explains in a newsletter he wrote to his HITRECORD community. The actor remembers watching the original Beverly Hills Cop at “way too young” an age, and teaching himself how to play the iconic, synth-driven theme song on his grandfather’s piano. Read more (and watch a video of Gordon-Levitt playing the Axel F theme on a kazoo), here.

Check out the trailer above, and read on to find out more about the new action comedy. Wait, is that a banana in our tailpipe? One second. 

CAST: Eddie Murphy, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Taylour Paige, Judge Reinhold, John Ashton, Paul Reiser, Bronson Pinchot, and Kevin Bacon 

DIRECTOR: Mark Molloy