Review of Beverly Hills Cop III (1994) by Brian R — 29 Nov 2013

Beverly Hills Cop III, called "atrocious" by Eddie Murphy who was said to have worked against the humour in the film by director John Landis is said to have been the worst film if the series by critics and audiences worldwide.

I still found it to be enjoyable.

Beverly Hills Cop III had plenty of action which is well filmed and edited, and the film cuts straight to it. But the action climax is more powerful. It's awesome, consistently action packed and even surprising. Some of the moments in Beverly Hills Cop III are pretty intense as well, and the musical score is commonly a powerful influence over that. And when the music isn't intensifying the atmosphere it's making it energetic, and it does it well. And although the story is repetitive and dull by this point and Axel Foley really has no good characters to interact with for humourous benefit, as well as a script which is very rarely humourous and is more reliant on Eddie Murphy's natural charm, even though he doesn't do it all that much, I still found Eddie Murphy to be doing a decent job with some good comedic moments in the story.

Eddie Murphy himself said to director John Landis that "You know, John, Axel Foley is an adult now. He is not a wiseass anymore.", and you can pick up on those elements in his characterisation. He's the only really good character in the film, and although his humour and energy isn't as fresh or smart as it once was he still makes a genial presence. His charisma is all still there.

Bronson Pinchot is a decent character at first, but he gets into a monologue rant which really isn't all that entertaining and gets really repetitive really fast. But in the end he's the only other character I would be likely to remember from Beverly Hills Cop III.

Really, the main flaw as listed in the production of Beverly Hills Cop III was that director John Landis was too reliant on Eddie Murphy's comedic talents and he was supposedly going through a depressed stage at the time of film's production and essentially refused to play a comedic character. As credible a claim as that is it doesn't show too much, but I don't know that its fair for John Landis to be openly unhappy with a script and then put all the faith into Eddie Murphy. Although he is the most credible source of comedy in the film, John Landis is the same man who directed such comedy classics as National Lampoon's Animal House and The Blues Brothers where the comedic charms come from a mix of interesting plotting, strong script and talented actors. Here, the plot is decent and the actors are all nothing special except for Eddie Murphy, but as John Landis put all the faith in Eddie Murphy and it wasn't considered a success, it's safe to say that he is largely at fault here which would explain his Golden Raspberry Award nomination for Worst Director. But I think he did a decent job.

So really, Beverly Hills Cop III is still good in my opinion. I don't know what standard die hard fans of Axel Foley had in mind when it was originally produced, but for people looking for a basic Eddie Murphy action flick with a few laughs, Beverly Hills Cop III is the way to go.