Jamie
Axel Foley is back, Jack! And he’s ready to take down the bastards who killed his cranky, but beloved, boss. Tracking them back to Beverly Hills and a nearby amusement park, Axel pulls out all the stops to stop these baddies in their tracks. Can he solve the crime (and maybe get the girl) before it’s too late? Find out in… Beverly Hills Cop III.
How?! When a bust on a minor chop shop goes horribly awry resulting in the death of his boss, our boy Axel Foley will hold nothing back in finding (and probably killing) those responsible. It comes as no surprise that these killers are based in sunny California and so Axel heads back to his old digs in Beverly Hills. Teaming up with his pal Rosewood they start to investigate the private security firm operated by a local amusement park. Despite acting super shady and seeming like real assholes, the bad guys are able to head off Axel’s investigations though their connections to the police and the community. However, Axel knows he’s on the right track when the owner of the amusement park himself approaches him and lets him know that the security people are real shady (duh). After some dead ends, some “you better stop what you’re doing” by the Secret Service, and some more snooping, Axel is able to find that the security guys are running a sophisticated counterfeiting operation. Unable to convince the Secret Service of the plan he meets back up with the owner of the amusement park to get some evidence but they get ambushed and the owner is seriously injured. Axel now knows that he needs a final climactic confrontation to blow the case open. He goes to the amusement park and they ride on a bunch of rides and shit and everyone shoots at each other and gets shot. Finally Axel is able to kill the man who killed his boss. Approached by the Secret Service agent in charge Axel (out of nowhere) realizes that he was involved and shoots him too (what a twist!). Gravely injured, both he and Rosewood laugh and laugh whilst remembering all the people they murdered together over the years. THE END.
Why?! Every Beverly Hills Cop film is a film of revenge for the shooting of someone close to Axel. The first was Axel’s neerdowell childhood friend, the second was the Lieutenant of the Beverly Hills Police, and now it’s his boss in the Detroit PD. They also all have unnecessarily convoluted conspiracy style schemes by the bad guys. This time the bad guys were at the chop shop in Detroit to pick up the US mint level paper they needed for the counterfeiting operation. They shielded the operation behind the production of Wonder World Bucks, a new amusement park specific currency. Now why Wonder World would use their private security team to also produce the new currency in-house is something you’d have to ask the owner… seems expensive to buy all the high tech machinery needed to build the operation from the ground up.
Who?! There are a bunch of cameos in this including some prominent directors in bit parts, the singer Al Green as a minister, and most strangely George Lucas as a patron of the amusement park. Those didn’t really interest me as much as Joey Travolta showing up as Giolito, one of Axel’s coworkers in the DPD.
What?! Nothing major in this category, although should point out that the original Beverly Hills Cop film is notable as one of the later examples of a cigarette company (Lucky Strike) paying for product placement in a film geared to young people. It was brought up in several books and congressional hearings and shit. For this film I’ll just do what I’ve enjoyed doing recently, which is looking for signature props for sale. Anyone want an apparently authentic Wonder World Buck? $30… yeah, I don’t want that. Now, the Eddie Murphy version? That’s more interesting and thus more expensive.
Where?! A+ Setting, baby. This one is probably not as Beverly Hills as the previous installments of the franchise. The first one in particular plays with fancy hotels and art galleries and gated houses. This one is more of an LA picture than anything else. So even disappointing in this regard.
When?! In a funny quirk we are provided with an intertitle exactly once in order to inform us that it’s “Tuesday 1:37 am”… and? It’s not even like there is much of a countdown clock to some important event occurring on Friday. Entirely useless. Thanks. C- but only because it did give an intertitle, which is something.
Rewatching the first film in preparation made me appreciate just how good and funny that first one is. Really very, very rewatchable. The second stumbles in taking the characters to some extremes that make them all intensely unlikeable. But it’s really nothing compared to this one where almost nothing works and the plot seems like it’s from a rejected Van Damme script or something. “Beverly Hills Cop in an amusement park” should have stopped this in its tracks cause that sounds terrible. And indeed this film is terrible. Like really boring and really flat and just kind of hitting the beats that they felt like they needed to make a Beverly Hills Cop film. They even brought back minor character Serge from the first film for a couple comedic relief scenes that seem to drag on forever. I can see how this finished the franchise for good. Hard to come back from. Patrick?
Patrick
‘Ello everyone! Beverly Hills Cop III was rejected for consideration on the worst film of all time wikipedia page, but that doesn’t mean I can’t completely hate it. Let’s go!
P’s View on the Preview – I love Beverly Hills Cop. I hated Beverly Hills Cop II. So I didn’t hold out much hope for the third film to be honest. The fact that it was set in an amusement park was intriguing though. One of at least two films we’ll watch with such a setting (the other being, obviously, 3 Ninjas: High Noon at Mega Mountain starring Hulk Hogan).
The Good – There are brief flashes of classic Eddie Murphy comedy in this film. The amusement park setting is actually pretty fun, as long as you buy into the secret tunnel Disneyland conspiracy aspect of the whole thing. I like Judge Reinhold, what can I say?
The Bad – Light on the comedy unfortunately, it has a lot of flatness between the gags. The gags mostly don’t work as well, feeling much more over the top than the actually-quite-serious original. The beach scene in particular is just goofy. Serge is completely out of place and misused as a weirdo arms dealer. They should have just went back to the art gallery and had him now be the owner, otherwise it feels like they were trying to punch up a boring movie. Just no laughs, which really is exactly what a bad comedy is I guess.
The BMT – Probably a classic third+ installment of a comedy franchise. Pairs up well with Another 48 hrs., and eventually things like the Police Academy sequels. You have to collect Eddie Murphy films like pogs if you are going to watch bad movies, so if anything the film was an inevitable watch.
Roast-radamus – Some maybe solid ones here. It is a solid contender for Where (A+ Setting) because it is set in Beverly Hills and boasts a very impressive amusement park setting. The film is chockablock with celebrity cameos including an incredibly long take of George Lucas at the amusement park, so a Who (Cameo) could work. Judge Reinhold is arguably a Planchet although perhaps a bit too competent by the third film for that to work. The film is arguably a candidate for How (Worst Twist) as well with about fourteen different cops ending up as part of the conspiracy in the end just to keep Axel Foley reeling. That … is a very 90s comedy sequel list of things to be, impressive.
StreetCreditReport.com – It is widely considered one of the worst sequels of all time. This list puts it at number 2. Beyond that it is also up there as one of Eddie Murphy’s worst. And as I said, you just have to collect these things like pogs. It has the cred.
You Just Got Schooled – This article is more to do with Ronny Cox from the first and second Beverly Hills Cop, but don’t worry, he still gets in a dig at Beverly Hills Cop III. The article is pretty great to be honest, with probably the most interesting bit being about inevitable BMT film Captain America (1990). He says the script is brilliant! It is hard to believe, but why would Ronny Cox lie to me man?
Cheerios,
The Sklogs
Bad Movie Twins 