About halfway through this movie I was asked: "who is this for?" Well, I have pondered that question and I came up with a very clear answer: It is for Gen X/Late Boomer Dads. They get all their favorite things - remembering how unfairly they were treated for things that were entirely the results of their own actions, themes about how they were bad parents because of their particular brand of nihilism and refusal/inability to either confront problems or have emotional intelligence and how they can still reconcile without actually having to change or put in any effort themselves. Plus, of course, jokes that really have not aged very well at all, but are comforting and familiar to them because they remember them being funny back before the Kids Ruined Everything.

This movie is actually shockingly direct in its replication of the original; not since the first movie in the Star Wars sequel trilogy have I seen movie so intent on doing absolutely nothing new, but exactly replicating its own original film but worse. It really makes it apparent that comedy is often a product of its specific time, and the things that were funny once are simply not funny anymore. The original Beverly Hills Cop, if we are being honest, does not hold up very well itself today. Most of its jokes don't work, and its characters fall pretty flat, and its treatment of things like police just don't work in today's world of increasing militarization of those police and the widespread failure of the war on drugs and a variety of other factors. The context of our society has simply shifted too far, and so repeating those same things in that new context is no longer funny or cool.

This isn't to take away from Beverly Hills Cop in its own age; just like a very old video game might have been a great game at the time but would be ignored today, so is the case with movies. I think that it is a movie that was a product of the culture in which it was produced and doesn't transcend that, and this new movie is essentially proof of that concept, to me. If you rewatch Beverly Hills Cop and think "this movie really holds up" then I suspect you'll come to a very different conclusion about BHC: Axel F than I did, as well, and you'll probably be pleased. But for me it is leaning heavily on nostalgia and it just doesn't cut it.

Another thought I had watching this is that relying on an actor's transcendent charisma works really well right up until it doesn't; Eddie Murphy in this movie (compared to his film-making peak) reminds me also of someone like Will Smith, who just had it and then at some point during his Oscar-baiting years simply didn't have it anymore. Of course, he can still make movies that people like and even do a good job acting, but the Will Smith of today could never make Wild Wild West watchable through sheer screen presence alone. And unfortunately, neither can Eddie Murphy in this movie.

Score: 3/10

IMDb: Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F

PS: Joseph Gordon-Levitt seemed as bored making this film as I was watching it, except for when he got to start screaming F-bombs in a helicopter.

PPS: I did think it was kind of funny when he caused a serious car accident that would definitely have killed the cop in one of the vehicles, just so that he could continue chasing his adrenaline high. The guy is really just that, an adrenaline junkie, and only happens to be a cop because it gives him the greatest impunity to get away with it.