Paramount picked a great film to include in their remastered Eddie Murphy favorites, just in time for the debut of his latest film, Coming to America 2.
“The heat is on in this fast-paced action-comedy starring Eddie Murphy as Axel Foley, a street-smart Detroit cop tracking down his best friend’s killer in Bever Hills. Axel quickly learns that his wild style doesn’t fit in with the Beverly Hills Police Department, which assigns two officers (Judge Reinhold and John Ashton) to make sure things don’t get out of hand. Dragging the stuffy detectives along for the ride, Axel smashes through a huge culture clash in his hilarious, high-speed pursuit of justice. Featuring cameos by Paul Reiser, Bronson Pinchot and Damon Wayans, and newly remastered for 4k UHD by director Martin Brest, Beverly Hills Cop is an exhilarating essential blockbuster!”
Beverly Hills Cop originally had Sylvester Stallone in the lead role as wise-cracking detective Axel Foley, but insisted on re-writing the script to make it more action-oriented. Fortunately for us, nobody liked that version and he was let go, making room for Eddie Murphy’s most successful roles in his career. As much as I like Stallone, we all dodged a bullet there, as there is absolutely no way the movie would have been as good as with Murphy in the helm, spawning two additional sequels, soon to be another.
The character of Axel Foley continues to be one of my favorites in comedy. His portrayal of a cop dedicated to doing the best possible job he can by utilizing questionable means only gets better as the series progresses. Some of the situations he makes up on the fly are hilarious and brilliant to get his way or access different areas or retrieve information. Foley’s eventual side-kicks, Billy Rosewood (Judge Reinhold) and Taggart (John Ashton) give great performances that balance the story out as by-the-book cops who eventually come around to Foley’s shenanigans. Even their boss, Lt. Bogomil, learns to loosen up after seeing the effectiveness of his methods.
Steven Berkoff and Jonathan Banks serve as perfectly good villains in the film, a little one dimensional and paint-by-numbers boss and henchman dynamic, but the overall story of how Foley’s friend was killed is still entertaining how he pieces it together. That’s the best part about each one of the films, even though it’s heavy on the comedy, it still provides an interesting detective story in which the audience is always guessing.
Paramount released the Beverly Hills Cop Collection less than a year ago for the first time on Blu-ray. While I love having an upgraded version of the first film, it’s an unfortunate trend that happens with a lot of studios offering upgraded versions of franchise films: they release only the first film on 4k and will never release the others. I hope to be proven wrong, but what is the point in waiting on the others and not releasing them in a complete set if it’s more than likely not going to happen? Whatever the reason (money), I’m just glad we get to see the best one in this upgraded set!
Video
Beverly Hills Cop is presented in 2160p 4k Ultra High Definition Widescreen 1.78:1 featuring Dolby Vision. The set released earlier this year was newly remastered, which looked fantastic. This 4k version enhances that remastered source print to give it much greater detail. Colors are more rich and vibrant, with those brilliant brights and deep darks that the UHD set can offer. While it is an impressive watch, it is nowhere the difference you’d notice in watching that remastered Blu-ray version last year and that original Blu-ray release.
Audio
The audio is presented in DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1. This is the same track featured on the collection released earlier this year. The audio track sounds great, with a nice balance between the surrounds and center channel. There are some nice action sequences that show off the robust track, but where you’ll really enjoy this track is the soundtrack, featuring one of the most well-known themes from the 80’s, something probably everyone has attempted on a keyboard once in their life.
Special Features
No new extras here, but they do include extras from the collection released last year, which did include new ones.
- Deleted Scenes
- Behind the Scenes: 1984 Interviews
- BHC Mixtape ‘84
- Commentary by Director Martin Brest
- Beverly Hills Cop: The Phenomenon Begins
- A Glimpse Inside the Casting Process
- The Music of Beverly Hills Cop
- Location Map
Beverly Hills Cop looks great in 4k, but don’t expect to see the sequels released in UHD, on physical media, probably ever. For those fans who want the best looking version of the film possible, this is it. For me, however, the noticeable difference in quality is somewhat negligible to warrant upgrading the first film alone, leaving you with the trilogy on Blu-ray. Still, this is part of the massive Eddie Murphy resurgence Paramount is releasing in anticipation for his upcoming film Coming to America 2. If the price is right for you this holiday season, it’s a fantastic film to own.
