Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F does justice to the beloved franchise

Looking at the review scores for some of Netflix’s latest original movies, you might suspect that the streamer has lost its way . In the last two months alone, Netflix has released Unfrosted (42% on Rotten Tomatoes), Atlas (18%), Trigger Warning (20%), and A Family Affair (41%). With that in mind, Netflix is probably breathing a sigh of relief at the critical response to Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F , which made its streaming debut on Wednesday.

Reviving a dormant franchise is always risky, especially when the last movie came out 30 years ago. Not only that, but Beverly Hills Cop 3 was reviled by critics and made way less money than the first two entries. There was really nowhere to go but up.

At the time of writing, Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F has a 66% on Rotten Tomatoes, which is higher than all but the original movie. Here are some quotes from the positive reviews floating around online, most of which praise Murphy’s performance in particular:

2 of Netflix’s newest releases both have 100% critic scores

• “Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F is exactly the kind of entertaining summer blockbuster that we need more of.” – Nate Richard, Collider
• “Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F is anything but stale or overloaded. The film is, instead, just as much fun as you’d hope and lighter on its feet than it should be.” – Alex Welch, Digital Trends
• “The action set pieces look expensive and are the heavy-duty glue that holds the movie together.” – Ferdosa Abdi, Screen Rant
• “His manic energy as a comic may have dimmed in the intervening decades, but there’s no refusing the genial appeal that remains to Eddie Murphy, Movie Star.” – Jarrod Jones, The A.V. Club

As long as you don’t go in expecting The Next Great Buddy Cop Comedy, Beverly Hills Cop 4 will be enough to keep you entertained for two hours. That might not sound like a very high bar to clear, but many of these reboots fall flat on their faces.

In fact, Eddie Murphy tried his hand at another long-awaited sequel back in 2021 with Coming 2 America . Although the movie had a big debut on Prime Video, it wasn’t especially well received, with a 49% critics score and an even worse 38% audience score.

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