The other Eddie Murphy movies they might reboot

Eddie Murphy has now appeared in two of the more prominent dustings off of movies and/or franchises that originated in the 1980s. Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F joins Coming 2 America in that regard. In fact, the only other one that immediately comes to mind -- I think the latest Mad Max movies are something different since they don't feature the same actors -- is Bill and Ted Face the Music, so Murphy has been in two-thirds of the movies that profile this way. (There are others, I'm just saying they are not immediately jumping to mind.)

Since both of Murphy's movies have been generally well received, it got me wondering what might be next for reheating in Murphy's catalogue.

But first, a few thoughts on Axel F, which I finished on Friday after overestimating my stamina on Thursday night.

I enjoyed this movie. Perhaps more so than the others mentioned, it is not trying to be an updated Beverly Hills Cop movie, in which the joke is how old Axel Foley interacts with these new-fangled 2020s concepts like social media. In fact, it is trying as much as possible to feel like it was made in the 1980s, including usage of theme songs from both Beverly Hills Cop and its sequel ("The Heat is On" and "Shakedown") and generally mimicking the action beats of a 1980s movie. In fact, it directly mimics a lot of scenes and moments of especially the first BHC movie -- I might not recognize callbacks to the second and third movies, the first of which is the only one I've seen, and only once. And though that sort of fan service can be obnoxious or just insulting, it's fine here.

A lot better than he played Prince Hakeem in Coming 2 America, Murphy really inhabits Axel Foley. I think this is a strength of both his performance and the writing of Foley's dialogue. He's still capable of the verbal diarrhea that is part and parcel to his general persona and a key strategy to confusing whoever he's talking to. He's still capable of raising his voice into righteous outrage when he's trying to embarrass someone into letting him in somewhere. The only thing that disappointed me is that Murphy is either incapable of doing or unwilling to do the old Murphy laugh -- you know the one -- which was one of the things that ingratiated us to him 40 years ago. It may have been 30 years or more since he's done that, so I guess I should not be surprised.

Other quick thoughts:

1) I was pleased to see that John Ashton (Taggart) is still alive, and he's actually in decent shape. But since he's only just now 76, that got me thinking -- this guy was 36 years old in Beverly Hills Cop? That's the most middle-aged-looking 36-year-old I've ever seen.

2) Despite being nine years Ashton's junior, Judge Reinhold (Rosewood) might look nine years older than Ashton. He's still got sort of a baby face, but it looks all punched up by a boxer, like Mickey Rourke.

3) I can't decide what I think about Taylour Paige, who plays Axel's estranged daughter, an attorney. I found Zola, in which she starred, to be highly overrated, and that means she didn't do much for me there. During this movie I went back and forth on whether she has charisma or does not have charisma. By the end I decided I was okay with her.

4) I know Lisa Eilbacher has been retired from acting since 1995, and she wasn't even in the first of the two sequels. But I was kind of hoping to see her turn up here. She didn't for probably the same reason Kelly McGillis didn't show up in Top Gun: Maverick: Hollywood is not kind to aged actresses who have been retired for many years and therefore have not paid special attention to keeping themselves camera ready. (Oh yeah, Top Gun is one of those revived 1980s movies I couldn't think of in the opening paragraph of this piece.) At 68, Eilbacher is McGillis' senior by two years, and retired a lot longer ago than McGillis. (Looking at her credits, it appears McGillis may not actually been retired, but the work has been pretty spotty the past ten years.)

So which Eddie Murphy movie can we expect to be rebooted next?

Yet Another 48 Hrs. - Nick Nolte is still alive! Get him while that's still true!

Trading More Places - See above comment, but about Dan Aykroyd! (Ghostbusters -- another revived 80s franchise.)

The Silver Child - This time it's not golden! 

The Nutty Professor: No Fat Shaming - Woke! 

Dr. Doolittler - He's a miniature doctor who can talk to animals! 

Meet Dave Again - Once was not enough!

Holier Man - This time, he's even more holy! 

Imagine This Also - Way more imaginative than Imagine That! 

Vampire in Brooklyn: Undead Again - Sure! Why not! 

Boomerang Comes Back Around - I don't even remember what Boomerang was about! 

Further Adventures of Pluto Nash - If it didn't work the first time, this can't be any worse! 

Beverly Hills Cop is just as good 40 years later

I saw Beverly Hills Cop a number of times in the 1980s. It was probably one of the first profanity-laden films I'd ever seen, to say nothing of one of the first films I'd ever seen where people were regularly being shot. My friends and I also thought it was hilarious, as we'd quote lines to each other all the time. I can't remember if I saw it in the theater for the first time -- I would have only been ten and that would have been too young -- but I feel like I have a memory of an audience going wild when John Ashton's Taggart tells Judge Reinhold's Rosewood "If you do that again, I'll shoot you myself!"

But did I ever see Beverly Hills Cop after the 1980s? I don't know.

It seems a strangely long drought for a movie that was beloved by me, which may still be the best-ever use of Eddie Murphy. (Coming to America is gentler, but this is the version of Murphy that originally became famous and was most like his stand-up concerts, which I also ate up and watched repeatedly.) Maybe in the back of my mind I thought it wouldn't hold up. Maybe in the back of my mind I'd heard Harold Faltermeyer's "Axel F" (one of my favorite songs at the time) one too many times. Maybe Murphy had slid too far into disgrace for me to want to revisit one of his earlier efforts, even though I still see basically every Eddie Murphy movie that gets made.

Well, the release of the new long-delayed Netflix sequel, Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F, gave me the excuse to revisit the movie, as I'm sure it is doing for many of you.

And I can tell you that it holds up, that "Axel F" plays in almost every scene and that I never got tired of it, and that there may not have been a more charismatic performance ever given on screen than the one Murphy gives here.

I'll probably watch the Netflix movie tonight so I can review it tomorrow.

Let's address each one of these points individually:

1) The movie holds up. How many movies made in 1984 can you say that about? I expected a lot of gay panic and poor representation, but the movie is pretty good on those fronts. Yes, there is a scene where Axel pretends he is gay in order to embarrass a hoity toity maitre d' into allowing him to approach the table of the villainous Victor Maitland to reveal the news he has herpes simplex 10. (One of the first STDs I ever knew about, although I think that may not be a real variation on herpes.) But that scene is more about the embarrassment it would cause to convey private information in a public setting than it is about homophobia. And there may not be a lot of Black characters in this movie other than Axel, but at least there's one other cop on the Beverly Hills force who shares Murphy's skin color. (And Murphy mocks him for not talking black enough, though he then tells the guy he's just giving him a hard time, with a phrase I found charming: "Sorry, I find that funny.")

2) "Axel F" is not obnoxious to listen to. There was a time in the 1980s when everyone I knew had learned how to play the melody of "Axel F" on a piano, and would regularly walk up to unoccupied pianos to play it. Yes this song definitely reached its saturation point at one time, and lately is known to younger people for its version by the internet meme Crazy Frog. But you know what? It's still a great song. It literally plays a dozen to 15 different times in this movie, and never once do you wish they would vary up the music. (Although there are also plenty of other good period songs, like "The Heat is On" and "The Neutron Dance.") And each time the theme kicks in, you think "Yes! Go Axel Foley!"

3) Eddie Murphy is great. Oh my goodness is Murphy great in this. My memory had been that Murphy might have been rude and crude and unpleasant. But he's actually a softie, a charmer. He drops F bombs, but it's primarily when someone else is treating him unjustly, not casually for sport. He's initially nice to everyone he meets, if they deserve that courtesy. He laughs a lot (oh that laugh). He apologizes if he thinks he's delivered a cheap shot to someone. And his moral compass is incredible. I think I thought I was getting the less charming Murphy from some other movies in that era, particularly 48 Hrs., which I saw only recently and didn't much care for. But this is superstar Eddie Murphy that even a mother could love, and he is charismatic as fuck.

Some other observations:

1) I appreciated how much time is spent on reloading guns in the final act, when most of the gunplay occurs. It was probably an excessive amount of gunplay -- and let's not talk about how terrible Maitland's thugs are with machine guns -- but at least they consciously devote time to the need to reload.

2) However, I do think it's funny how there can be a giant police involved shooting with a dozen bodies and instead of that in itself raising the alarm and creating all sorts of terrible headlines for the LAPD, it gets everyone an "Attaboy" clap on the back. Look, it's still a movie and it's still escapism.

3) I saw Paul Reiser in the opening credits, and though Paul Reiser was not a star yet, I was still surprised at how small his scene was. It's like, they put him in long enough to showcase a personality, but then they just excise him from the proceedings.

4) But speaking of small parts for actors who would become big ... Damon Wayans plays the guy who gives Axel the bananas!

5) When Jonathan Banks materialized on Breaking Bad, I thought "That was the guy who was so menacing in Beverly Hills Cop." I'm sure I'd seen him in the intervening years, but not in any part that had made an impression on me like Beverly Hills Cop had. There's something about his face in this movie that always gave me the chills, and I suspect it had to do with him executing Axel's friend at the start of the movie -- something I had probably never before seen in a movie.

I could go on, but like I said, I'm sure you have been watching Beverly Hills Cop again this week yourself.

Let's just hope Axel F does not make us cringe so much that we forget everything we loved from the original. 

Strings attached - to Portman's Oscar hopes

One of the surest bets on Tuesday is that Natalie Portman will receive her second Oscar nomination for her role in Black Swan. After all, she won the Golden Globe for the role. That's not a guarantee she'll get nominated -- just ask Jim Carrey, whose win (in the musical/comedy category) for Man on the Moon didn't translate to any Oscar love. But it's very close to a guarantee.

In Portman's case, it feels like "her year," so a nomination is one of the best locks for Tuesday morning. Annette Bening will give her the best run for her money, but may settle for second place for at least the third time in her career.

Then again, she may not ... if voters hold Portman's upcoming roles against her when they vote.

Don't think that's possible? Just ask Eddie Murphy.

Murphy was also a Globe winner for his role as James "Thunder" Early in Dreamgirls, and was considered the frontrunner to win his first Oscar in the same supporting actor category. Until Norbit came along and screwed everything up.

There's no way to verify that, of course, but the standard thinking at the time (early 2007) was that voters would have cast a lot more ballots for Murphy if they weren't being simultaneously assaulted by the grotesque Rasputia character from the Norbit ads. That was one of three roles Murphy played in the movie, but either of the other two (the title character and an old Chinese man) would have probably still allowed Murphy to stroll up to the podium on Oscar night. This vile, crude third character, which required every bit of latex in Rick Baker's arsenal, was what did Murphy in. Or so the thinking goes. (The Oscar went to Alan Arkin in Little Miss Sunshine, a deserving choice.)

Now, No Strings Attached, which comes out today, is no Norbit, even if you might alphabetize them consecutively. It addresses a perfect topic for a romantic comedy -- fuck buddies, or "friends with benefits" (there's an actual movie called Friends with Benefits, starring Justin Timberlake and Portman's Swan castmate Mila Kunis, coming out this summer) -- and it looks like it's been made at least half-competently. Let's hope so, because then I won't have to be so disappointed in mumblecore darling Greta Gerwig for "selling out" to be in this movie.

On the other hand, it's pretty far from Oscar material. In fact, has a movie featuring Ashton Kutcher ever been nominated for an Oscar? (The answer is, no, but Emilio Estevez' Bobby did get nominated for a Golden Globe -- a best picture nomination that was about as unjust as this year's nominations of The Tourist and Burlesque.)

But Portman isn't only fighting No Strings Attached when it comes to subliminally influencing the Academy. Her next two features are Your Highness, a Medieval stoner comedy starring James Franco and Danny McBride, and Thor, the ridiculous-looking comic book movie. They release in April and May, respectively, so there isn't much in the way of actual advertising for them just yet. But voters may still be mulling over their ballots around the time of the Super Bowl, when there figures to be ads for at least one if not both of these films. In fact, factoring in Black Swan, that makes this one of the most fertile periods in the career of a woman who once expressed her ambivalence about continuing acting as a profession. It's possible that No Strings Attached would not be enough to sabotage her chances, but the three movies put together could convince Oscar voters that Portman isn't "Oscar material."

Not that there's anything Portman could have/should have done differently. You make the choices you make and you sign on for the projects you think will be fun, challenging, and/or lucrative. Once you're on the dotted line, you're committed, and you have no control over when the studios consider it the perfect time to unleash these films on the world. Unless you decide to play the diva on set just to delay the production -- which is basically career suicide.

In fact, if we'd heard that Portman had stalled the momentum of her own career in order to manage her image in the months immediately following Black Swan, she would instantly drop several notches in our estimation. First off, it would mean she thought she had a good chance at an Oscar -- never a safe thing to assume, and the mere assumption is the kind of thing that seems to jinx it, if you're a superstitious person. But then it would also represent a cold and calculating attempt to finesse the conditions that must be in place for a person to win an Oscar -- which are not only giving a good performance, but also being likable ... and also not tainting your performance by reminding people that you're the kind of person who would consider Norbit an acceptable use of your talents.

Well, there should be a deserving first-time winner come Oscar night, one way or another. If Portman wins for her harrowing performance in Black Swan, she'll deserve it. If Bening finally wins her first Oscar after three previous nominations, spread almost equally throughout a 20-year career, then that'll also be a well-deserved coronation of one of Hollywood's most well-liked actresses. And if someone like Jennifer Lawrence from Winter's Bone manages to sneak in and steal it, that'd be great, too.

As for No Strings Attached ... my affection for Portman and my dislike for Kutcher averages out to me catching this on video sometime in August.