BEVERLY HILLS COP II
A film review by Steve Fritzinger
Copyright 1987 Steve Fritzinger
No one told Eddie Murphy and Robert D. Wachs that originality counts when they were writing BEVERLY HILLS COP II. Only the names (of the villains) and the crime have been changed to make this sequel. The first 10 minutes of BEVERLY HILLS COP II convinced me I was in for a long 2 hours. 20 minutes into this movie, I asked the guy next to me to wake me if anything funny happened.
The first reel reintroduces us to Axel Foley, and the rest of the cast from BEVERLY HILLS COP. Foley is still causing trouble in Detroit. In Beverly Hills, Rosewood, Taggart, and Bogomil are in trouble with the new police chief. We are also treated to some "mood setting" scenes, Murphy's "You'll believe anything if I talk fast and loud" routine, some fast cars being driven recklessly (but not always wrecklessly), and a quick robbery to show us how much firepower the bad guys will be toting. The stage is set for Foley to go West and stop the bad guys while fighting off hostile local cops and hiding from his own captain in Detroit.
In the first thirty minutes Murphy hogs the camera to the exclusion of everything but his car. Every situation, every joke, and every shot is straight out of the first movie. COP II shows all the signs of being a hacked together recycling of COP I.
Then something wonderful happens. About 30 minutes into COP II everything clicks and the film starts to build the same momentum that carried COP I. The camera moves off Murphy and starts pulling in the supporting cast. John Ashton as Sergeant Taggart and Judge Reinhold's Detective Billy Rosewood save COP II from being a mediocre rehash of COP I.
Reinhold is a pleasure to watch as he adds some much needed pacing and direction to Murphy's frantic Axel Foley. Reinhold gets more than his share of the laughs by parodying tough-guy movies and hamming up his sensitive character. Ashton doesn't have a lot to do as the conservative and worried Sergeant Taggart, but he works well as Reinhold's straight man. Since Murphy is no longer expected to carry the movie on his own, his performance loses the hurried and pushed feel that marred the first third, and COP II takes off.
There are still some problems. Foley, Taggart and Rosewood mostly stumble onto clues rather than doing any convincing detective work. Foley seems to have watched too many episodes of MACGYVER, having taken to checking for finger prints with Super-Glue, and rigging alarm systems with chewing gum. There is the expected number of car chases, but the profanity is way down. Maybe comedians have realized that yelling certain words at the top of their lungs is no longer an automatic laugh.
By ignoring the first third of BEVERLY HILLS COP II, I can give it a +2 on the -4 to 4 scale.
Steve Fritzinger CCI-OSD Reston VA.
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