This is good, a pretty nice legacy sequel fitting right in with the previous three films. Murphy is not as loud and unique anymore as his acting style from the 80's, but it's actually natural when aging and he's definitely still funny in this. The comedy and the jokes are on point and Murphy is good crawling back in the Axel character. Reinhold and Ashton reprise their roles well too and I would like to have seen more of Reinhold, but Gordon-Levitt who replaces him as Axel's side kick in this film works too in role. Kevin Bacon on the other hand is nothing special, but I guess they just get any famous person in the role and that's that. But the action is good however and combined with the familiar story this is simply a film to have a good time with. Coming 2 America was a total sequel mistake for Murphy, and while Axel F is more or less predictable and could be more exciting to some extent, it does enough to be a win however.

B

All I wanted was for it to be better than III. It is. Thankfully. Anyone expecting anything more than that though is probably going to be at least a little disappointed.

My biggest problem is why fridge Billy for 3/4’s of the movie? Find him at the end of the first act, cut out Levitt’s role and swap Billy in (Levitt’s fine, the character is meh) and you have a much more entertaining movie. 99% of the audience watching this is watching to see Foley, Billy, and Taggart together again. I don’t care if they’re in their 60s and 70s and it’s not realistic. Put them together!

I liked the brief meta moment where Levitt’s character is going through Foley’s file and shit-talks what he did in “94”. Nice moment to acknowledge that III was bad and that’s why we’re all here. I will say though, the one thing that that movie gets right is the villain. He was an absolute asshole. The villain here (I won’t spoil it, but come on…take a wild guess. On the bright side the movie makes it clear they’re a villain five minutes after we’re introduced to them so the filmmakers at least are smart enough to know that we know) is just kind of blah.

But hey, this movie lives or dies on Murphy’s performance and he’s back, or at least he’s back to what you would expect Axel to be like in his 60s based on the first two films. Same guy, just a little worn out.

Also, I’m reading too much into it but it’s a funny coincidence that they “Jack Walsh’d” Axel Foley. (Unintentional) shoutout to Martin Brest/Midnight Run! (That and shooting a helicopter’s rotor out).

Axel Foley’s daughter is 32 which means she’s was born in 1992, two years before III. It’d be easy to work around if this movie ignored III but it doesn’t. So Axel was married and divorced in that time before meeting Theresa Russell in Wonder World? You’d think that might’ve come up. Come on guys, simple math. Just say she’s 29 or 30. You’ve still got time to change it with ADR.

If it had more Billy and was in theaters (I get why it isn’t) I think I would’ve liked this a little bit more. It also would’ve been nice to see Ronny Cox and Lisa Eilbacher, but you can’t get everything. Instead, at least Axel Foley gets to go out (?) on a small win.

3/5