Warning: Major spoilers for Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F below!

Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F makes a pointed jab about Beverly Hills Cop 3, but was this 1994 sequel truly that terrible? In a delightfully unvarnished Rolling Stone interview from 1989, Eddie Murphy was brutally honest about his career and the movie business. He dubbed Beverly Hills Cop 2 “mediocre” and claimed the only reason to make a third entry was purely for money. Of course, the first two Beverly Hills Cop movies were hugely successful, making a third movie inevitable.

Beverly Hills Cop 3 nearly transformed the franchise by sending Axel overseas, with different pitches taking him to London or Japan. Instead, Paramount opted to save costs and bring him back to Beverly Hills again to take down a counterfeiting ring inside a theme park. Beverly Hills Cop 3 arrived at a low point in Murphy’s career, receiving terrible reviews and grossing less than half of the second movie, which came seven years prior. Axel F is littered with homages to the first two movies, but nods to part three are notably rare.

How Axel F Insults Beverly Hills Cop 3

Detective Abbott has notes on Axel’s Wonder World adventure

Joseph Gordon-Levitt is part of Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F’s cast as Detective Abbott, who was also in a relationship with Foley’s daughter Jane (Taylour Paige). When they meet for the first time, an amused Abbott runs through Axel’s past visits to Beverly Hills and shades his Wonder World misadventure as “Not your finest hour.”

This is a very meta comment on the third film’s reception and an acknowledgment it came close to killing the series. In truth, Beverly Hills Cop 3 is deserving of its dire reception, as it misfires on almost every level. For the first 15 minutes it’s not so bad, but once Axel arrives in Beverly Hills, the quality nosedives. Director John Landis was a bad fit for the material, while Murphy’s attempts to make Axel more mature just make him boring.

The “Die Hard in a Theme Park” hook isn’t so bad, but the sequel’s humor is lame and the action largely underwhelming. Beverly Hills Cop 3 also dropped characters like Taggart (John Ashton) and Jeffrey (Paul Reiser), whose absences were keenly felt. Perhaps the biggest sin of the 1994 entry is that it’s just plain dull, which is the absolute last thing an Axel Foley adventure should be.

Eddie Murphy REALLY Didn’t Like Beverly Hills Cop 3

The third film is to blame for Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F’s taking so long

Eddie Murphy’s dislike of the previous Beverly Hills Cop sequels caused him to back off the series. Over the years, he’s labeled the Landis sequel as “garbage,” and refused to sign for another installment unless it had a solid script. In truth, Murphy bears some responsibility for Beverly Hills Cop 3. Reportedly, he wanted to ditch the comedy in favor of action, and would undermine attempts to make his scenes funnier.

Murphy’s joyless turn in Beverly Hills Cop 3 zaps many sequences of their comic potential, and the action doesn’t make up for it. He seemingly realized this in hindsight, since he’s dialed up the humor in Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F. It’s great fun seeing Murphy back in action-comedy mode, and hopefully, there’s at least one more sequel in his future. The fourth movie’s Beverly Hills Cop 3 jab is pretty mild, considering Murphy himself has been harsher about it in interviews.

Source: Rolling Stone, The Numbers, Rotten Tomatoes