The first two Beverly Hills Cop movies are excellent, even if part two didn’t have that same originality and tightly written script, it was entertaining, but that’s probably where they should have stopped. Ten years after the first movie, Detective Axel Foley is called back on duty after a simple raid he’s in charge of goes wrong, resulting in the death of his commanding officer and sending the Detroit cop back to Beverly Hills, but this time to hunt down criminals in the greatest place on Earth, Wonder World.
About Beverly Hills Cop III, Eddie Murphy famously once said, “There’s no reason to do it: I don’t need the money, and it’s not gonna break any new ground.” But he seemed to predict the future, adding, “The only reason to do a Cop III is to beat the bank, and Paramount ain’t gonna write me no check as big as I want to do something like that. In fact, if I do a Cop III, you can safely say, “Oooh, he must have got a lot of money!” That amount ended up being $15 million, and delays would cause the production to exceed its $55 million budget, while director John Landis questioned whether the supposed-to-be easy-cash-in film would even be finished. It was a mess for multiple reasons.
Long before Paramount had to pause production to address budget issues, the film’s plot and script would go through numerous iterations, many of which were also shot down for financial reasons. One of the original ideas saw Foley and friends heading to London to rescue Captain Bogomil (Ronny Cox), another idea had him teaming up with Sean Connery, then John Cleese, and a revamp saw him going overseas to avenge the death of Paul Reiser’s character, there was a solid approach that saw Foley dealing with his new celebrity status after the first two movies while still trying to be a regular detective, there was even a pitch from Brandon Tartikoff – of NBC and Saved by the Bell fame – who wanted a crossover between Axel Foley and Crocodile Dundee (Paul Hogan), but Murphy was not feeling that one.
They ended up with a script by Steven E. de Souza (Street Fighter, Hudson Hawk), who wrote Die Hard and presented the idea for Beverly Hills Cop III as “Diehard in Disneyland,” which it failed at. Multiple people were brought in to massage this screenplay, causing a multitude of rewrites, with most of the focus on tweaking the comedic elements and trying to make the jokes appear more natural. Work on the scripts reportedly caused several disagreements and an overall feeling that many people involved with the project weren’t sure what type of humor the franchise should be shooting for at that point. The finished product would see Foley heading back to Beverly Hills to avenge Inspector Todd (Gil Hill) and stop a counterfeiting ring running out of an amusement park, Wonder World, with the involvement of federal agents to up the stakes.
Pre-production took so long that John Ashton (who played Taggart) and Ronny Cox dropped out to work on other obligations, leaving Billy Rosewood (Judge Reinhold) the only other original main cast member to support Foley. However, Cox also did an interview where he implied that the script kept him from starring in the film, meaning he was just better at dodging bullets than his character in part two. Another familiar face did show back up after missing the previous movie, but although I was happy to see the return of the amazing Serge (Bronson Pinchot), many thought that bringing him back was a sign of the film’s desperation. There are also several smaller cameos, with the two standouts being George Lucas and Julie Strain. New characters were brought in, like Hector Elizondo as Detective Jon Flint, the incredible John Saxon as villain Orrin Sanderson, the stunning Theresa Randle as love interest Janice Perkins, which creates some solid sexual tension while still wasting her potential, and finally, the wonderful Alan Young, most notable for portraying Uncle Scrooge McDuck, as our Walt Disney stand-in, Uncle Dave.
Although most of the actors involved were very talented, part of the problem came in giving Foley a weak set of bad guys. There were several, and none of them felt threatening without outnumbering our hero, only standing out while teasing Foley about his dead boss. Murphy himself wasn’t on top of his game either. According to an interview with Bronson Pinchot, the comedic star was depressed about the performance of his recent films, had no energy on set, and was absent for some of his scenes, such as the initial conversation with Serge.
Murphy was already somewhat reserved while filming, having the idea that his character was more mature now and therefore not as jokey, but his mood seemed to make it worse. Landis had hoped that his star’s natural infectious charisma and humor could prop up a slumping script, but Murphy had denied the director’s comedic prompts, resulting in bits that felt incredibly forced and a shift in tone that greatly hurt the project.
Much of the comedy is put on the other actors, or it feels like they are gags happening to Foley rather than him being at the head of them. The perfect gauge of this might be the lines from the dying Inspector Todd or the segment where Axel wears the elephant suit. There’s more slapstick, characters working with simple props, such as Billy hiding behind the leaves or hitting Flint with the door and Axel using a dead guard like a puppet. Some of it gets too silly, like the sound the toy train makes when the security guard kicks it or the entire scene with the Annihilator 2000 gun. There’s a goofier feeling to some of the interactions – like when the entire bar turns around in unison to look at where Foley is – and the parts that do kind of work, like the security forces having to try and shoot Foley without alerting the park guests, come off more as obvious bits than something to progress the plot.
It also doesn’t help that most of the action is lackluster, even if it wasn’t offset by the abundance of humor. I think, on paper, the idea of setting the action in a theme park was solid, but leaning into that also created plot and production issues. The opening scene has some decent gunplay, but the last big shootout isn’t nearly satisfying enough. My favorite portion was the fight in the Alien Attack ride, but that’s because it was actually the Earthquake section from Universal Studios, which I recognized, along with them using what was almost a copyright infringement of Cylons from Battlestar Galactica. It isn’t good that those things stood out the most. The initial script called for larger, more in-depth action scenes with bigger set pieces, but those had to be altered or scaled down due to budget and available locations to shoot. Also, what we received wasn’t helped by some obvious green screen effects. The location change hadn’t worked for many fans, and though I want to applaud them for trying to do something different, the decision to put most of the action inside Wonder World seemed to be a hindrance.
Everything just felt different, even the music, which incorporated the catchy “Axel F” theme into different remixed versions that were updated for a new decade, but this film just had no chance of resonating with its fans. The box office wasn’t horrible, but films like The Flintstones (which de Souza also wrote on), Maverick, and The Crow smothered Beverly Hills Cop III’s release. Though Eddie Murphy talked up the film at first when doing press, he (and Landis) eventually began publicly admitting how much of a failure it was, or at least that it didn’t live up to what was expected from the franchise.
I’ve purposefully tried to keep myself from comparing Beverly Hills Cop III to the previous two because it isn’t fair, and I want the movie to live and die on its own, but that’s tough because we’ve seen two much better entries do almost all of this better already. The formula was there, but they wanted to try and let the series evolve, the actors were solid, but not everyone was there for it, and maybe it was simply time for Detective Axel Foley to turn in his badge.
Unless…
Okay, please let this one be good.
