Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F has earned the second-place Rotten Tomatoes audience score of the franchise by a hair. The new Netflix movie is a legacy sequel to the original action-comedy trilogy that ran from 1984 to 1994, featuring Eddie Murphy reprising his title role as fish-out-of-water Detroit detective Axel Foley. The Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F cast also includes returning stars, such as Judge Reinhold, John Ashton, Paul Reiser, and Bronson Pinchot, alongside franchise newcomers Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Taylour Paige, and Kevin Bacon.

Now that Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F has been out for several days, Rotten Tomatoes has calculated an audience score for the movie out of more than 1,000 user reviews. At the time of writing, the movie’s audience score is a demonstrably solid 80%. While the score could fluctuate as more reviews are added, especially during the first few weeks of the movie’s release, this is currently the second-best audience score of the entire franchise, trailing just 2% behind the 82% audience score for the 1984 original.

What Audiences Are Saying About Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F

The Legacy Sequel Brings Eddie Murphy Back In A Major Way

While this Rotten Tomatoes audience score is the most substantial user score across various ratings platforms, every other major platform also shows that audiences are responding positively. At the time of writing, the movie has a rating of 6.6 out of 10 on IMDb, a star rating of 3.1 out of 5 on Letterboxd, and a user score of 6.9 out of 10 on Metacritic (though its critic score on the platform is a more lukewarm 5.5). Mathematically, all of these user scores would still equal a Fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes when converted to the percentage system.

There are a variety of reasons that audiences are responding well to the new movie. One major reason is the return of Eddie Murphy, who has flown somewhat under the radar since voicing the character Donkey in the Shrek franchise. While he has scored a few recent Netflix successes with the movies You People and Dolemite is My Name, his triumphant return to the Beverly Hills Cop movies seems to have ignited the public imagination in an even bigger way.

However, nostalgia isn’t the entire driving force behind the movie’s success with audiences. Many users have praised it for delicately balancing callbacks and legacy characters with a storyline that presents a fresh take on the Beverly Hills Cop formula, not overplaying its hand or leaning too hard on previous installments. Additionally, others have simply praised it for making them laugh, which is nearly always the primary goal of a comedy movie.

Outside the praise from its three- to five-star reviews, some of the Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F‘s most negative reviews have had something kind to say about it. While criticizing the movie’s direction, one user admits it has a solid cast and a decent story. On top of that, a one-star review, which gave the movie a thorough drubbing for its clichés and some of its performances, even begrudgingly admitted that the Detroit sequence at the beginning of the movie was entertaining.

Axel F Brings The Franchise Back To Its Glory Days

It’s The First Fresh Audience Score For A Beverly Hills Cop Movie Since 1984

The critics and audience’s Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F reviews have put the movie in a unique position, making it the first time that either score has been Fresh for an installment in the franchise since the original 1984 movie, let alone both scores. Because the review aggregator service requires at least 60% of a movie’s reviews to be positive for it to qualify as Fresh, both of the original sequels earned Rotten splats by falling short of that number. Below, see the Rotten Tomatoes history for the entire quadrilogy:

The movie also has the second-highest gap between the two groups of any movie in the franchise, with the audience score clocking in 15% higher than the critic score. While Beverly Hills Cop III has a bigger gap of 24%, that movie’s audience score was still thoroughly Rotten, which gives Axel F a strong edge. While neither score has quite reached the heights of the original, the new movie seems to provide a return to form for the franchise that it hasn’t seen in four decades.

The Rotten Tomatoes scores for Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F spell good news for the possible Beverly Hills Cop 5. While the sequel, which is currently in development, has not yet been officially greenlit, it seems entirely likely that Netflix will do so if the movie’s viewership numbers turn out to be as positive as its critical reception within the first 30 days of its premiere. This will allow the franchise to produce a new movie with even better Rotten Tomatoes scores, potentially even exceeding the original.

Source: Rotten Tomatoes