I Like What Axel F is, I Mourn What it Could Be, and Maybe That it Shouldn't Be.

Beverly Hills Cop as a franchise is an interesting if not frustrating journey over the years, both as a production and as a viewing experience. The former because even the first one had an entire makeover before it made it to our screens, and the fourth spent a couple of decades in development hell. The latter precisely because it's so uneven as a franchise with both quality and tone, changing drastically from film to film even while the formula remains mostly the same. For two entries it somehow came together, for one it finally revealed the flaw in the undertaking of sequels in the first place, and for the latest I’d say the results are complicated. Unlike other major franchises the built-in plot line is one that makes repetition a quandary, because it's literally called Beverly Hills Cop it means either this Detroit cop has to keep coming back to Beverly Hills, or simply move to Beverly Hills..they chose the former. Something like “Aliens” lends itself to being set in different locations, different times, with whole entirely different cast of people if one should want. Indiana Jones can go on different adventures, Rambo can go on different missions, Rocky can have different fights, but Axel Foley coming back to (never mind having reasons) Beverly Hills to do work there while not working there is the definition of cinematically “stretching” milk with water, and yet here we are at the fourth iteration. This has always been the problem with Hollywood and more to the point capitalism, this unwillingness to let something that was profitable just live as it's most pure self because there's a shred of a possibility that money is being left in the table. The the obsessive and possessive desire to repeat what probably shouldn't be repeated because there's an opportunity for more money to be made is a prime example of Dr Ian Malcolm’s (Jurassic Park) proverb “You were so concerned with whether you could, you never stopped to think whether you should” and has taken the life and the love out of many a venture, many an idea, and in this case many a movie, and it's no different here.

Beverly Hills Cop: “Axel F” is a practice in cognitive dissonance of joy. It's fun, it's funny, it moves pretty well, the action is fine, the jokes are pretty good, there's some chemistry, and depending on your taste, you will find the acting anywhere from fair to very fair. The premise is the same, the result predictable; Axel needs a reason to come back and because it's a legacy sequel you can bet there is some kind of family involved. In this case there's a daughter that we had never seen before, by a mother we had never seen before and the movie proposes to deal with that by nudging in a not too shabby subplot about Axel being so in love with his job that he prioritized it over his daughter and then refuse to apologize for it. It's the kind of conflict that needs a lot more than it's being given here but it's in an applaudable effort to create something out of nothing -again “stretching the milk”. There are dirty cops, there's Kevin Bacon, we see most of the old players come back, it's not a bad time. I found it to be pleasantly better than I expected. “Better than expected” is fine, but it feels cheap and somewhat depressing to say that about a franchise that started on the notes this one did, and that relative quality is notable. Though it most certainly could’ve and should’ve been a theatrical release, there is something TV-like about this film, something in the cooking that makes it feel smaller, safer. I could mention the score, Lorne Balfe’s music has its moments of brilliance, but it's not ambitious enough nor anywhere near as creative as Harold Faltermeyer’s legendary score. I could definitely mention the script, which feels aggressively hollow, hackneyed, and predictable, and moves along like a sitcom. I could mention the direction which though far superior to the other aspects of production, doesn’t have the moxie or compositional detail of the Scott sequel which is this films most clear kinship of the series. The “why” of this particular blandness in the ultimate outcome, becomes a bit clearer in the ingredients of the credits. The original (Penned by Daniel Petrie Jr) was nominated for an Academy Award, the sequel was written by men (Larry Ferguson, Warren Skaaren) whose credits include “The Highlander”, “The Hunt for Red October”, “Alien 3”, “Beetlejuice”, and “Batman” combined. The first two were directed by gifted journeyman Martin Brest, and Tony thee Scott, director of “Top Gun”, “The Last Boy Scout”, “True Romance”, and “Crimson Tide” to name a few. “Axel F” is directed by a first timer whose previous credits are Apple Commercials, and written by the guy who brought you 2013’s “Gangster Squad” (a movie I almost forgot existed until I looked up writer Will Beal’s credits) and “Aquaman”. The other writers are a TV guy (Kevin Etten) and the writer/director or “That Awkward Moment” (Tom Gormican) another “Forget-Me-Please” legend. Factor in that somewhere back in time there was supposed to be a TV show involving a family angle (A son that time) and it helps map where the underwhelming bits might have come from. This kind of absurd drop in resume quality is is exactly my issue with the film and over that, capitalism because it shows not only are you committed to forcing something that ultimately may be best left alone in pursuit of something original, but that even when you're forcing it you're so disinterested in the actual product you don't even care to make sure that you put the best people around it even while knowing the history of the things that preceded it. Handing the reigns of a legacy franchise sequel over a TV writer, two poor movie writers, and a commercial director with no movie experience is telling and frustrating. It says to me you weren't aiming to make this a Blockbuster movie that would simply air on Netflix, but rather a high-end TV movie for Netflix, which is mostly what Netflix produces; “Bright” except not written by Max Landis, but kinda. When when the people behind “Top Gun” Maverick go into production and they enlist the likes of Peter Craig (“The Town”, “The Hunger Games”, “The Batman”) and the director of two of the most visually satisfying movies of their decade in “Oblivion” and “Tron Legacy”, it says to me “Oh they mean business”, and by comparison it makes the folks behind Axel F seem as if they barely tried. To be fair, movie making is always a crap shoot, and maybe over 20 years of trying to get this off the ground led to a willingness to compromise, but quality of the people you collaborate with and the people around you are indicative of not only a desire to want to make the best movie possible, but a belief in the product. So it then begs the question; “Why didn't the people behind this want to make the best movie possible?” . “Who doesn't believe in Beverly Hills Cop as an IP?”

Part and parcel to the frustration of watching something that is merely “fine”, put together by an assemblage of people who's resumes are merely “fine” when and maybe especially because the last was such a huge commercial and artistic failure, -is all the unanswered questions it calls forth. Most chief amongst them; is “fine” all we can hope for? This goes beyond even this franchise. When John Mctiernan leaves the “Die Hard” franchise for whatever reasons were behind that, why is no one looking for the best to replace him? Why weren’t John Woo, Tsui Hark, Martin Campbell, Paul Greengrass, or Michael Bay, given a ring? Why are Len Wiseman (fine) and John Moore (not good) taking up the work of a bona-fide action movie legend? In a world where 8 “Mission Impossible’s” in, they're still some of the best action films out there, I don't see the point of going into something with the ingredients to only make something acceptable rather than something that not just reminds people of the nostalgia they once experienced, but of the ingredients behind the quality they once experienced, the greatness they once experienced. Is Tom Cruise the only guy in Hollywood that knows action well enough to know how to follow great acts? I know the answers in a certain sense of what capitalism is bound to do, I just don't understand it on a kind of natural level. Where does pride in what you do not come into play? What you produce, putting your name on something. I'm not talking about Eddie Murphy who I think has made it pretty clear he’s sincerely trying, to some extent that's probably the main reason why this turned out any good in the first place. I'm talking about Netflix, I'm talking about Paramount, maybe even (dare I say it) Jerry Bruckheimer. I'm asking why is it that when Tom Cruise wants to make a legacy sequel it seems like a signal goes out for Hollywood’s best to get behind what is intended to be a global event, but when Eddie Murphy wants to make a legacy sequel of one of the most popular movies all time it seems like “The Replacements” from that one Keanu Reeves movie shows up? Though race may quickly come first to mind, considering the facts behind the aforementioned “Die Hard” series or the treatment of the remake of Mamoru Oshii’s sci-fi classic “Ghost in the Shell”, this is less an issue of racial disparity and more a disparity of higher ups who care about movies.

when there is sincere care and love brought on by some of the best doing today legacy sequels can rock

Back in 1998 Roland Emmerich riding high off the success of Independence Day would take a run at an American version of Ishiro Honda’s post nuclear eco-classic monster flick “Godzilla”. Culturally the movie was by and large a disappointment, the public felt it was forgettable and it showed itself in the drop off in the box office in only its second week, but it nonetheless was commercially successful and ended up making nearly three times it's budget back, and yet despite this the shutter doors were closed on any sequels for Godzilla. The market and the people recognized it wasn't a worthy pursuit. Funny enough, a revisit to Emmerich's Godzilla flusters one with a rush of nostalgia not simply for a time by-gone, but for a craft, for an attention to detail in storytelling that then was a bare minimum, and now barely exists. This is the struggle of not only watching the latest entry of what was a classic franchise but of watching movies in general today. The lack of care, the lack of intention, the the lazy acceptance of mediocrity, that has infected not only the upper echelons of Hollywood, but to some extent the audience which includes a certain amount of critics. When IP’s, sequels, and remakes initially started to noticeably dominate theater screens I kicked and screamed, but eventually their near ubiquitous proliferation led to a sort of mild acceptance and then eventually to a sort of celebration of the best of the worst, but at some point I've come full circle back to where I started. I no longer find myself in the mood to celebrate mediocrity disguised as invention or fun. If I watch either of the most recent Japanese Godzilla films (Shin Godzilla, Godzilla Minus One) and I see big, boisterous, emotional, fun as hell thrill rides, and then I watch “Godzilla vs King Kong” and it's just the same rock'em sock'em effects I got in those two and nothing else, why should I applaud the latter? When I played little league football I had one of those loud cranky old school Bear Bryant characters as a coach. Coach “Pete” was prone to vitriolic evil -John Wooden-like maxims like “Your saliva is 99% water drink that”, but from time to time his over simplifications and flat out lies hit. One such quote was “If you can touch it, you can catch it”. The words hang banner like over my feelings toward this current iteration of movie making. I would only slightly change the context to if you can touch greatness, than you can catch it. If you can get the monsters right and the joy of what we see in them, then you can get the characterization of the people affected by their actions right, you can get the rest of the storytelling right. a I'm not going to applaud you for cheating those aspects as if its either/or. Whether it was an Ed Wood picture or Berry Gordy's “The Last Dragon”, “Roadhouse” or any number of Golan-Globus productions, those films didn't end up becoming the cult classics they became because the directors were knowingly winking at the audience, or because they were aiming low. All of those people were sincerely trying to make the best picture possible and more important due to the insularly nature of the productions they were empowered by people who mostly wanted the same, and that heart and that desire along with other more indefinite factors regardless of skill, regardless of budget, ended up showing themselves in the final product. For those who have boots on the ground of an actual production it is not for me to say whether or not they actually are putting their heart and soul into these productions, that doesn't become clear till years later when somebody's brave enough to talk about what went on, but it is more than evident that the powers that be, that provide distribution, that green light, that hold final say over what talent they can afford to get, or want to go after, are definitely not invested in producing good art, and at this point they’re not even invested and producing great entertainment. They are not concerned with the legacy of films like “Beverly Hills Cop” beyond the extent to which that legacy makes the movie profitable. Whether its the fun but rather flat in comparison to their antecedent Bad Boys sequels, the crushing emptiness of the “Jurassic Worlds” or the sad afterlife of “Ghostbusters”, the continuing onslaught of reanimated skinless, corporatized nostalgia as content and time passable entertainment and it's disruptive effect on those of us who still wish to see those dearly departed bits of our past is frustrating to say the least, even when the final product is “pretty good” or “not too bad”. “Axel F” is just the latest example of Hollywood taking the safest road possible, the most risk adverse path to the creation of art and entertainment. For all intensive purposes the entry seems to be a success and the part of me that loved that series and what made its original entries such an important part of my '80s cinematic experience is happy for that, but the fact that that success only further incentivizes the disruptive nature of the philosophy of content over that of art and entertainment deeply saddens me.