Continuing my plan to watch every Eddie Murphy movie in order, I come to his second movie of 1984, Beverly Hills Cop
Plot In A Paragraph: Detroit detective Axel Foley (Murphy) travels to Beverly Hills whilst investigating the murder of his childhood friend.
We all know the story, Sly was involved, left and used some of his ideas, from rewriting this in Cobra. Murphy came in, made it more of a comedy and the rest is history!!
It's truly impressive how well it balances humor, drama, and action. There are a lot of silly comedy moments where Foley's antics shouldn't fit into a movie about a cop trying to find his friend's killer. We have scene with Foley sneaking around and shoving bananas into the tailpipe of a car and a life or death shoot out. It shouldn't work, but it does. It worked so well, that movie producers are still trying to reproduce today, some 34 years later. I think some scenes stand out as being from the Sly version. The chase at the beginning, The warehouse scene and the shoot out at the end.
It's the first time we see 'In association with Eddie Murphy pictures' and Foley is pretty much just Hammond/Valentine with a badge. Judge Reinhold and John Ashton are perfectly cast as the actual Beverly Hills Cops and Ronny Cox (Deliverance) adds more integrity to his role of the grumpy Chief Of Police.
Beverly Hills Cop grossed $234 million at the domestic box office to finish 1984 the highest grossing movie of the year. Ahead of Indiana Jones & The Temple Of Doom, Ghostbusters, Karate Kid and Gremlins. A movie won't gross that much until Batman 5 years later.
With this movie Murphy cemented his status as the first No 1 black movie star. Sure, Poitier and Pryor, had starred in hit movies movies before Murphy, but they didn't come close to achieving the popularity with audiences that he did here. In his previous movies Murphy shared top billing with a white costar, but with this movie, his was the only name and face on the poster and it was the number one movie of the year. This feat can not be under estimated. It would be 12 years before another black actor would have the highest grossing movie of the year, Will Smith in Independance Day, and it's not happened again since.
Plot In A Paragraph: Detroit detective Axel Foley (Murphy) travels to Beverly Hills whilst investigating the murder of his childhood friend.
We all know the story, Sly was involved, left and used some of his ideas, from rewriting this in Cobra. Murphy came in, made it more of a comedy and the rest is history!!
It's truly impressive how well it balances humor, drama, and action. There are a lot of silly comedy moments where Foley's antics shouldn't fit into a movie about a cop trying to find his friend's killer. We have scene with Foley sneaking around and shoving bananas into the tailpipe of a car and a life or death shoot out. It shouldn't work, but it does. It worked so well, that movie producers are still trying to reproduce today, some 34 years later. I think some scenes stand out as being from the Sly version. The chase at the beginning, The warehouse scene and the shoot out at the end.
It's the first time we see 'In association with Eddie Murphy pictures' and Foley is pretty much just Hammond/Valentine with a badge. Judge Reinhold and John Ashton are perfectly cast as the actual Beverly Hills Cops and Ronny Cox (Deliverance) adds more integrity to his role of the grumpy Chief Of Police.
Beverly Hills Cop grossed $234 million at the domestic box office to finish 1984 the highest grossing movie of the year. Ahead of Indiana Jones & The Temple Of Doom, Ghostbusters, Karate Kid and Gremlins. A movie won't gross that much until Batman 5 years later.
With this movie Murphy cemented his status as the first No 1 black movie star. Sure, Poitier and Pryor, had starred in hit movies movies before Murphy, but they didn't come close to achieving the popularity with audiences that he did here. In his previous movies Murphy shared top billing with a white costar, but with this movie, his was the only name and face on the poster and it was the number one movie of the year. This feat can not be under estimated. It would be 12 years before another black actor would have the highest grossing movie of the year, Will Smith in Independance Day, and it's not happened again since.