I grew up watching Eddie Murphy in the ’80s, and he has always been one of my favourite comedy actors of the decade. He just kept churning out hit movie after hit movie. Brilliantly written and acted flicks that never failed to make me laugh… and he made Best Defense too. A few years ago, Eddie brought back his Prince (now King) Akeem character with Coming 2 America – and it wasn’t very good. My favourite Eddie Murphy film left with a pretty lacklustre legacy sequel. Well now, Eddie is back as one of his most famous and popular characters with Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F.

Right from the off Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F hits the ground running with a scene of Eddie’s Axel Foley casually driving through Detroit with that music playing. Two things suddenly hit me. First, a glorious wave of nostalgia splashed me in the face and left me with a big old grin. Second, I was left wondering how 63-year-old Eddie Murphy looks about 36.

I’m not doing spoilers here, but the basic plot of Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F is that Axel ends up back in Beverly Hills after his estranged lawyer daughter gets caught up in a case defending a supposed cop-killer. Back in his old stomping ground, Axel soon gets dragged into a conspiracy involving corrupt police, drugs and a lot of old friends. It’s not just Eddie Murphy who returns for this sequel as several familiar faces are back to cause chaos on the streets of Beverly Hills.

Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F is (unlike Coming 2 America) how you bring back a popular Eddie Murphy character and do it well. 40 years after the release of the original Beverly Hills Cop and 30 years since we last saw Axel in Beverly Hills Cop III, this feels very 1980s but with just the right amount of modern tropes to keep the plot shifting. Fans of the franchise are in for a treat because they are well-catered for. Axel is just as great at getting into trouble in 2024 as he was in 1984 and there are plenty of nods and references to the previous films without feeling overly sentimental.

You get to see Axel try to bullshit his way into places he shouldn’t be, you get to see detective work done the old-fashioned and very movie-like way, and you get fan service that leans into nostalgia – but without forcing it down your throat to make you choke. While avoiding spoilers, there are jokes and callbacks here that hit the right spot and still do something new with it. There’s a scene where Axel tries to bullshit his way into getting a nice room at a very expensive Beverly Hills hotel – just like with the first film, but with a different resolve. There’s a scene in the trailer where Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s detective Abbott, reads out Axel’s previous times in Beverly Hills while referencing the other films and yet, the trailer does not give away the best bit of that scene. Yup, a trailer actually held something back for the film… and it’s really good too. Just a quick throwaway line that will have fans of the franchise nodding and smiling.

The plot of Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F is hardly remarkable and it is very predictable, but this is not meant to be an Oscar-grabbing flick, it’s an action-thriller with just the right amount of humour. The Beverly Hills Cop films have never really been laugh-out-loud funny and the humour comes more from Eddie’s performance, over any form of joke writing, this is true of this sequel too. Yeah, it has laughs, but it is the charm and personality of Eddie Murphy that really carries this one. There are great action sequences, well-implemented references for fans, several old faces returning and plenty of new ones. Overall, Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F is a very worthy sequel. It’s a film that feels like it could’ve been made a couple of years after the release of the original because it captures that old-school vibe and treats it with respect, and it does more than enough to help you forget that Beverly Hills Cop III was ever made. A brilliant return to form for Eddie Murphy, easily his best film for quite some time, and it just goes to show that there’s still a lot of life and charm left in this sexagenarian. Man, this was a fun watch.