As the world of movie fans hold their breaths in the hopes that maybe all this time we’ve had Brett Ratner pegged wrong and that he may find a way to deliver on fun projects like Beverly Hills Cop 4 and God of War, our pals over at Latino Review got to check out the script for the former and confirms that… no, no we didn’t have Ratner pegged wrong and yes, everything he’s doing is likely to suck something awful.
*exhales*
My apologies for the exclamation point in the title, it was uncalled for.
Latino Review’s source, El Chavo, basically says that what they’re apparently calling Beverly Hills Cop 2009 (can this possibly be final title?) is completely unoriginal, boring, and no fun at all.
The script, by Michael Brandt and Derek Haas (Wanted, 3:10 to Yuma), has Murphy’s Axel Foley return to Beverly Hills 15 years later to investigate the death of his old friend Judge Reinhold’s Billy Rosewood. Aside from a small shootout and chase in the beginning, the story goes a while with no action until Axel gets into a small fistfight. What’s in the middle, El Chavo says, is quite boring and unfunny and riddled with F-bombs. Axel teams up with the fat LAPD rookie and a limo driver and acts like a supercop.
The basic story of Beverly Hills Cop 2009 isn’t terrible. It’s a pretty standard police corruption story that has a personal edge for Axel Foley, and Brandt and Haas make it feel like an 80s action film by keeping the action more grounded, even though the final fight does include RPGs. But there’s no fun in the movie and it feels like it needs another draft to make the film an Axel Foley adventure and not a generic cop getting revenge picture.
Overall C+
Yikes. I’m not even sure that sounds C+ worthy, but there you have it. This isn’t to say that things won’t change around as time goes on and a more polished script may come into play, but so far, all sounds really just awful.
BHC 4 is looking for release in 2010.
