Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F

My username hints at my birth year. I was a child of the 1980s and movies like the Beverly Hills Cop franchise were what I grew up on. Well, that is to say that's what I watched in the 1990s, when my country finally got around to airing Hollywood movies on free TV some 4 to 5 years after their release. It was a great childhood though, with action (+ comedy) movies that featured stars like Arnold Schwarzenegger, Bruce Willis or Sylvester Stallone. Well, I mentioned the big three, but there are a ton of others worth being added. With this as my background, "Axel F" should be the blast from the past I've been waiting for all decade long. Well, you'd think so, but the early happy feelings don't last more than the moment of recognition. Seeing Eddie Murphy on screen - and reappearing in his defining role no less - was great and he looked surprisingly fit for a 60 plus actor. But soon enough it became clear, that while the meat was there, it didn't taste right. It's the same disappointment I felt when Bruce Willis did Die Hard 4 over a decade after the third one, only more intense. Unlike Die Hard though, this movie production was likely based on the premise of bringing the original 80s vibe back. One thing you have to ask yourself though: how could it ever *feel* authentic, when it's actually set in the 2020s? Some things are just painfully cringy, others horribly sad. Like a 60+ old Axel Foley still not having grown up, still wanting to be a street cop and instead of being that lovable screw-up he was in earlier movies, what I saw in movie number four was merely a sad empty shell of a beloved childhood character. You could almost see it in the actor's face, that he's only doing this for the money - for him the $20 million he's rumored to have earned as both producer and actor seem to be worth spitting on the legacy of this franchise. Not that the second but particularly the third movie were as good as the first one, but I still enjoyed them as a teen.