Classic Movie Review Beverly Hills Cop 3

Beverly Hills Cop 3 (1994) 

Directed by John Landis 

Written by Steven E. de Souza 

Starring Eddie Murphy, Judge Reinhold, Hector Elizondo, John Saxon, Theresa Randle

Release Date May 25th, 1994

Published May 27th, 2024 

Screenwriting 101: if you want to establish that your character is heroic, show them doing something heroic. For instance, in the movie Beverly Hills Cop 3, Eddie Murphy hops aboard the Spider ride at Wonder World. The baddies want the ride stopped so they can snatch Eddie off of the ride. As they fight with the ride operator, the ride gets turned up to 11 and the machinery of the ride starts to break down. This causes one of the gondolas on the Spider ride, one carrying two young children, to come loose and begin to break off. 

Not missing a beat, our hero, Axl Foley (Eddie Murphy), leaps into action. Risking his own life, Axl climbs out of his gondola and begins leaping to the tops of other gondolas. As this happens, the ride begins to move again, nearly causing Axl to fall to his death. As Axl is climbing his way toward the broken gondola, after finding a conveniently placed length of rope, the ride stops and the chain holding the broken gondola begins to break further. Axl uses the rope to lower himself down to the door of the gondola. He pulls the kids out of the broken ride and, as he's climbing down the rope, the broken gondola finally breaks and begins to fall. Axl reaches the ground and narrowly gets himself and the kids to safety just as the gondola drops. 

The scene establishes that our protagonist is a selfless hero, a man willing to risk his life to save innocent children. Here's the problem though, this is Beverly Hills Cop 3. Two previous movies have already established that Axl Foley is a hero. We've seen Axl Foley perform heroic acts as a police officer in both Detroit and Beverly Hills in two different movies. Thus, spending a 7-to-8-minute scene re-establishing Axl's heroic nature is a gigantic waste of screen time. Sure, there's a chance that some of the audience hasn't seen the previous two Beverly Hills Cop movies before, they may not be aware of Axl's heroism. But they are seeing a movie called Beverly Hills Cop 3, they are probably aware that the main character of this third movie in a franchise is a hero in the movie they are watching. 

Bottom line, this scene is a gigantic waste of time. It's a bit of business and a not a particularly interesting one. There is no chance in hell that either Axl or the two children he's saving in this scenario, happening in the early portion of the second act, are going to die. We have no reason to worry or be tense about this moment. During this entire scene, Beverly Hills Cop 3 is spinning its wheels, it's going nowhere. We are watching a tension free action scene that has nothing to do with the plot of the movie. In fact, the movie has to place the plot on hold just to carry out this scene. The scene is deathless in length and since the outcome is assured, we have zero reason to be invested in this scenario. 

That scene I just described is a perfect microcosm of Beverly Hills Cop 3, a movie that is constantly spinning its wheels and going nowhere. It's clear from frame one to frame last that no one involved wanted to be part of this movie. Subsequently, we've learned from director John Landis and supporting actor Bronson Pinchot, that Eddie Murphy was completely checked out and had no interest in making the movie. According to both, a scene where Pinchot's character, Serge, delivers a comic monologue had to be played opposite John Landis standing in for Eddie Murphy, because Murphy could not be bothered to leave his trailer to do coverage or be there for his co-star. 

In fairness to Eddie, this monologue is entirely devoid of laughs and while it serves the purpose of introducing a weapon that Eddie will use later in the film, the weapon is a gag and not a very funny one. The weapon in question is used not in the final showdown of the movie, but as a brief, needless side quest where it malfunctions and then over-performs the task of taking out a random henchman. The gag is that the gun has a lot of needless features like a radio, a net that fails its function, and a radio that gets turned on. The song on the radio is meant to be a punchline but the song is so generic and forgettable that the joke doesn't land. 

The plot of Beverly Hills Cop 3 is not important. The movie reflects this by barely mentioning the plot. A vehicle gets stolen in Detroit and cut to Axle in Beverly Hills going to see his friend Billy Rosewood (Judge Reinhold). What made Axle go to L.A? The movie doesn't bother to tell us. It's fair to assume he was going there just from the title, but, at the very least, each of the previous movies gave Axle a reason to go to Beverly Hills via some sort of established link in the case he's investigating in Detroit. Beverly Hills Cop 3 is so lazy that the editor appears to have thrown up their hands and just cut to Axle in Beverly Hills and, oh by the way, the bad guys are here also. 

I don't need to over-egg the recipe here; Beverly Hills Cop 3 is a terrible movie. The only interesting aspect of the movie for me is related to a piece of backstage gossip. Apparently, Eddie Murphy and John Landis had a severe falling out during the making of the movie. On IMDB, they cite an interview in which Eddie Murphy said that he would work with John Landis again as soon as Vic Morrow works with John Landis again. If you know, you know, that is a dark joke and a truly sick burn You can follow this link to understand the context of that cutting insult. 

Beverly Hills Cop 3 is the subject of the newest edition of the I Hate Critics 1994 Podcast, a spinoff of the I Hate Critics Movie Review Podcast. Each week, I subject Gen-Z'er M.J and Gen X'er Amy, to a movie that was released in theaters 30 years ago that week. The goal is to examine how movies and popular culture have changed in just the last 30 years. You can listen to the I Hate Critics 1994 Podcast on the I Hate Critics Movie Review Podcast feed wherever you listen to podcasts. If you're wondering whether Amy, M.J, and I are aware of Beverly Hills Cop 4 coming to Netflix this summer? Yes, and we are significantly unexcited about it. 

Find my archive of more than 20 years and more than 2000 movie reviews at SeanattheMovies.blogspot.com. Find my modern review archive on my Vocal Profile, linked here. Follow me on Twitter at PodcastSean. Follow the archive blog on Twitter at SeanattheMovies. Listen to me talk about movies on the I Hate Critics Movie Review Podcast. If you have enjoyed what you have read, consider subscribing to my writing on Vocal. If you'd like to support my writing, you can do so by making a monthly pledge or by leaving a one time tip. Thanks! 

Classic Movie Review Enter the Dragon

Enter the Dragon (1973) 

Directed by Robert Clouse 

Written by Michael Allin 

Starring Bruce Lee, John Saxon, Jim Kelly 

Release Date August 19th, 1973 

Published August 19th, 1973 

This week’s classic on the Everyone’s a Critic Movie Review Podcast is Enter the Dragon, the final film in the all too short career of the legendary Bruce Lee. I have had little exposure to kung fu movies in my nearly 20 years as a film critic. Aside from some 80s cheese like The Last Dragon or the work of Jackie Chan, I have mostly ignored the genre having written it off based mostly on the stereotypes built from years of Bruce Lee knock-offs and cash-ins that soured more than just me on the idea of kung fu movies as anything other than the sad side of the B-movie genre.

Watching Enter the Dragon for the first time sadly is no revelation for me. While I came away with a great deal of respect for why fans took so much to Bruce Lee as a performer, I found the film not all that special. Lee’s magnetism goes a long way to making the otherwise predictable, bordering on silly story worth watching but the screen time spent waiting for Lee to start kicking butt is quite tedious and I found myself drifting.

In Enter the Dragon Bruce Lee stars as a martial arts master, also named Lee, who is recruited by a shady intelligence organization to attend a martial arts tournament run by the kind of super-villain that only exists in martial arts movies, Mr. Han played by former Drunken Master star Shih Kien. Mr. Han owns his own island in the Pacific and despite the best efforts of this intelligence agency they aren’t sure if he is amassing weapons or not.

The agency needs Lee to participate in a deadly martial arts tournament hosted by Han on his island and find out if there are indeed illegal weapons that would allow international military to attack the island. Lee agrees to the mission and then finds out that the mission has a personal component for him. We meet Lee’s father and he informs Lee and us that Lee’s sister was murdered by Han’s thugs in a seemingly random killing.

Find my full length review at Geeks.Media 

Classic Movie Review Black Christmas

Black Christmas (1974) 

Directed by Bob Clark 

Written by A. Roy Moore 

Starring Olivia Hussey, Keir Dullea, Andrea Martin, Lynne Griffin, Margot Kidder, John Saxon 

Release Date December 20th, 1974

Published December 4th, 1974 

A static shot of a home at night greets as our entry point to Black Christmas, Bob Clark's legendary holiday slasher movie. Clark holds the shot of the house throughout the credits, which include the title of the film in a lovely script known, according to find my font, as the Pamela Font created by Dieter Steffman, a German designer with a long history of creating unique fonts used by The Rolling Stones for their album covers, among many other iconic pop culture fonts. The font is not important but, it's a minor fascination for me and I love the idea that there are people in the world who are famous for creating fonts. 

Following the end of the credits we cut to the front door of the house. The Greek letters on the outside of the home and the fact that a young woman enters the front door, lead us to the correct assumption that this is a Sorority House, home to a number of young college aged women. After we've seen the woman enter and a camera pan to a nearby window communicates what appears to be a party underway, we cut back to the front door but things are different now. Instead of a steady camera pan or a static shot, we are now in a perspective shot. We are in the perspective of someone approaching the sorority. As Christmas music plays inside, the soundtrack is dominated by the heavy breathing of the person whose perspective we have assumed. 

The subtle shift in camera style is skillfully played by director Bob Clark and his cinematographer, Reginald H. Morris. Even someone who doesn't pay close attention to such things as the way the camera is used in a particular scene, will understand the shift from a standard series of shots establishing a place and a status quo, will recognize that the camera perspective has shifted from a passive to an active participant in the scene. The Christmas music falls away, replaced by a subtle, deep bass, slightly unnerving. The breath of this new character is underscored by a chilling wind sound effect, the cold underlining the chill you feel as this heavy breathing individually slowly makes their way to the door of the Sorority. 

Without a word spoken, Bob Clark has amped up the tension and placed you in the perspective of an unseen character who may or may not be a dangerous killer. If you know the movie you are watching is a horror film, the title Black Christmas, is pretty good lead in that direction, then you can infer that you, the audience, are the killer. Clark here is commenting on the horror movie in general. Placing the audience in the perspective of the killer is an indictment of an audience who comes to a horror movie to watch people die. In the span of less than 2 minutes, Clark has demonstrated a mastery of film form that will play out further as he introduces actual dialogue, characters, and incident into Black Christmas.

The scene then transitions as the unseen heavy breathing person steps forward and the camera returns to its previous status as an observer of events. The shadow of this unknown individual crowds the frame, seeming to move forward toward the windows of the Sorority House and as this person slowly approaches the house, the camera recedes until we jump inside the house and a Sorority member, we will come to know as Barb (Margot Kidder), descends the stairs. Inside the house, the front door is open, presumably having been opened by the unseen man but, he's still outside, the open door is a red herring of sorts, a distraction. We are thrust back into first person perspective soon after as the unseen character climbs a trellis to an open window in the attic. 

Find my full length review at Horror.Media