Beverly Hills Cop II
Theatrical release poster
Directed byTony Scott
Screenplay by
Story by
Based onCharacters
by Danilo Bach and
Daniel Petrie Jr.
Produced by
Starring
CinematographyJeffrey L. Kimball
Edited by
Music byHarold Faltermeyer
Production
company
Don Simpson/Jerry Bruckheimer Films
Distributed byParamount Pictures
Release dates
  • May 19, 1987 (1987-05-19) (Los Angeles)
  • May 20, 1987 (1987-05-20) (United States)
Running time
103 minutes[1]
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
Budget$27 million[2][3]
Box office$299.97 million[4]

Beverly Hills Cop II is a 1987 American buddy cop action comedy film directed by Tony Scott, written by Larry Ferguson and Warren Skaaren, and starring Eddie Murphy. It is the sequel to the 1984 film Beverly Hills Cop and the second installment in the Beverly Hills Cop film series. Murphy returns as Detroit police detective Axel Foley, who reunites with Beverly Hills detectives Billy Rosewood (Judge Reinhold) and John Taggart (John Ashton) to stop a criminal organization after Captain Andrew Bogomil (Ronny Cox) is shot and seriously wounded.

Despite it making less money than the first film and receiving mixed reviews from critics, the film was still a box office success, grossing $299 million worldwide. Additionally, the film was nominated for an Oscar, as well as a Golden Globe Award for Best Original Song, for Bob Seger's "Shakedown". A sequel, Beverly Hills Cop III, was released in 1994.

Plot

Beverly Hills Police Department Captain Andrew Bogomil, Detective Billy Rosewood, and Sergeant John Taggart investigate the "Alphabet Crimes", a series of mostly high-end-store robberies distinguished by the monogrammed envelopes with an alphabetical sequence that the assailants leave at the scene. Complicating matters is the new political state of the BHPD, headed by new Police Chief Harold Lutz, who is incompetent, egotistical, verbally-abusive, and doing everything he can to stay on Mayor Ted Egan's good side. Furious when Rosewood calls the FBI to help solve the case, Lutz holds Bogomil responsible as commanding officer and suspends him, despite Bogomil's efforts to convince the chief that Rosewood was only following a hunch. Lutz also punishes Taggart and Rosewood by placing them on traffic duty.

On the way home, Bogomil is shot and injured by Karla Fry, the chief enforcer of Maxwell Dent, who is secretly the mastermind behind the Alphabet Crimes. Hearing about the shooting on a news report, Detroit Police Department detective Axel Foley secretly abandons his current undercover duties and immediately flies out to Beverly Hills to investigate Bogomil's shooting alongside Taggart and Rosewood.

Posing as an undercover FBI agent to get past Lutz with the aid of Detective Jeffrey Friedman, Axel soon makes the connection between the robberies and Dent. He first finds out that the ammunition fired at one of the robberies was made by a gunsmith for Charles Cain, the manager of a gun club owned by Dent. Axel has Bogomil's daughter Jan use her connections as an insurance agent to find out about Dent's financial dealings. Dent is robbing his own businesses on purpose to finance firearms transactions with an arms dealer named Nikos Thomopolis, and is discreetly using Cain as the front man for his operations; Bogomil was shot because his investigation was on the correct track.

Having foiled an attempted robbery at a bank depot, Axel tricks Dent's accountant Sidney Bernstein into letting him use his computer and discovers Dent and Karla are planning to leave the country. Axel also learns from Jan that all of Dent's businesses have had their insurance coverage canceled and are about to go bankrupt—except his racetrack. Hurrying to the racetrack, Axel solves the latest riddle sent to the police, and is convinced that this riddle was made easily solvable to implicate Cain as the Alphabet Bandit and throw the authorities off Dent's trail.

The trio arrive too late to prevent the robbery and find Cain, shot by Karla, among those killed. While Lutz announces publicly that the Alphabet Crimes have been solved, Axel notices some red mud at the stables, which leads him, Taggart, and Rosewood to Dent's oil field, where Dent is making his final arms deal with Thomopolis. The three get into a shootout with everyone involved in the deal and manage to destroy the trucks carrying the shipments with explosives. Dent confronts Axel in the warehouse, but Axel gets distracted by one of Dent's henchmen on the roof above him and Dent gets away. Dent then crashes through the wall in his car and Axel shoots Dent through the windshield. The car hits Axel and goes down a hill, erupting in flames. Karla appears and is about to kill Axel but is shot dead by Taggart.

Just as the last criminals are about to flee, the police arrive and apprehend Thomopolis and the remainder of Dent's gang. Lutz and Mayor Egan arrive as well; Lutz is furious at Rosewood and Taggart for their insubordination, but the pair frustratedly stand up to Lutz and prove that Dent was the real Alphabet Bandit and that his crimes were about the arms deal. They also manage to convince Mayor Egan of Lutz's incompetence, prompting him to fire Lutz for jeopardizing the investigation and his abusive attitude towards his men. Mayor Egan chooses Bogomil to replace Lutz as the new Police Chief. As Axel prepares to return to Detroit, Mayor Egan calls Inspector Todd to thank him for allowing Axel to assist the BHPD, prompting Todd to chew him out over the phone.

Cast

Production

Paramount Pictures had planned a television series based on the first film. Murphy turned down the series but was willing to do a sequel.[5] Producers Simpson and Bruckheimer hired Tony Scott to direct due to his success with the 1986 blockbuster film Top Gun. The film was originally to be set and filmed in London and Paris; however, the script was re-written after Murphy expressed a reluctance to film outside the United States.

Eddie Murphy's salary to star in the movie was $8 million.[6] The budget of the movie was $27 million. Ronny Cox was going to have more screen time in the film, but couldn't due to his role in Robocop. Filming began on November 10, 1986, and concluded on March 25, 1987, after 135 days of filming.

Film editor Billy Weber said:

"Marty Brest had passed on the sequel, and Tony was available. But, he wasn't a comedy guy, so after we ran the first cut, Don and Jerry just looked around, and shrugged, and said, "Huh." It wasn't a comedy – it played like a straight action movie, which made sense, because Tony was an action guy, and that's what he knew how to do best, so it was really action heavy. We just never had a great script, and it never had a chance of being as good as the first movie because the script never got there. They re-wrote the script after the first screening and more jokes were shot and added in, and it brought it up a little bit. Eddie also started to act up on the set, the primadonna behavior was starting to show, and he was always late for filming, but he got along great with Tony."[7]

Soundtrack

The song "Hold On" as sung by Keta Bill plays during the scene wherein Axel, Rosewood and Taggart confront Dent at the Playboy Mansion. However, the film's soundtrack album, released by MCA Records, includes only a different version sung by Corey Hart, with different lyrics. The film introduced George Michael's controversial song "I Want Your Sex", a number 2 hit on the Billboard Hot 100. It also includes "Cross My Broken Heart" by The Jets (a Top 10 hit on the Billboard Hot 100) and "Shakedown" by Bob Seger (which became a No. 1 hit on that same chart), as well as "Better Way" performed by James Ingram. The Pointer Sisters scored a moderate hit with "Be There" (#42 on the Hot 100), their single from the soundtrack. It was the second time the sisters had contributed to the Beverly Hills Cop franchise; they'd notched a top 10 single with "Neutron Dance" from the Beverly Hills Cop soundtrack. Harold Faltermeyer's 1988 album, Harold F, includes a song called "Bad Guys", which is used as part of the film's score—an instrumental section of the song plays during the opening jewelry store robbery scene, and also during several other scenes throughout the film.

The soundtrack debuted at No. 8 on the Billboard 200 albums charts and spent 26 weeks on the charts, a far cry compared to the 49 weeks spent by the first film's soundtrack. Despite this, one song from the album, "Shakedown", was nominated for an Academy Award and the Golden Globe Award for Best Original Song. However, another song from the album, "I Want Your Sex", won the Razzie Award for Worst Song, despite it going on to achieve a platinum certification for sales by the Recording Industry Association of America.

Reception

Box office

Beverly Hills Cop II was one of the most anticipated films of 1987 and became a box office success upon release, despite not making as much as Beverly Hills Cop.[8][9] The film debuted at number one at the US box office, earning $33 million on its opening weekend, a sales mark that would result in the film achieving that year's highest-opening weekend debut, as well as the highest grossing opening weekend of all time at the time. Beverly Hills Cop II grossed $153,665,036 in the United States and Canada, becoming the third biggest hit domestically at the box office that year, after Fatal Attraction and Three Men and a Baby, and grossed $276.6 million worldwide, the second highest-grossing film worldwide that year, behind Fatal Attraction.[10][11]

Critical reception

The film received mixed reviews from critics. On Rotten Tomatoes, the film has a 46% "rotten" rating, based on 39 reviews, with an average rating of 5.1/10. The site's critical consensus reads, "Eddie Murphy remains appealing as the wisecracking Axel Foley, but Beverly Hills Cop II doesn't take him – or the viewer – anywhere new enough to justify a sequel".[12] On Metacritic, the film has a score of 48 out of 100, based on 11 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews".[13] Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "A−" on an A+ to F scale.[14]

Desson Howe of The Washington Post called it "a sequel that's as good as the original, if not better."[15] Roger Ebert gave the film one star out of four and wrote, "What is comedy? That's a pretty basic question, I know, but Beverly Hills Cop II never thought to ask it."[16] Janet Maslin of The New York Times wrote that the film is a skillful clone of the first film that can't match that one's novelty or excitement.[17] Variety called it "a noisy, numbing, unimaginative, heartless remake of the original film."[18] Sheila Benson of the Los Angeles Times wrote, "It's hard to believe that the group who came up with the hard, clean edges of Top Gun, sleek and unfeeling though it may have been, could make a picture as crude, as muddled, as destructo-Derbyish as this one."[19]

"Beverly Hills Cop II was probably the most successful mediocre picture in history," Murphy said. "It made $250 million worldwide, and it was a half-assed movie. Cop II was basically a rehash of Cop I, but it wasn't as spontaneous and funny [as the original]."[20]

Accolades

Award Category Nominee(s) Result
Academy Awards[21][18] Best Original Song "Shakedown"
Music by Harold Faltermeyer and Keith Forsey;
Lyrics by Harold Faltermeyer, Keith Forsey and Bob Seger		 Nominated
ASCAP Film and Television Music Awards Top Box Office Films Harold Faltermeyer Won
Most Performed Songs from Motion Pictures "Shakedown"
Music by Harold Faltermeyer and Keith Forsey;
Lyrics by Harold Faltermeyer, Keith Forsey and Bob Seger		 Won
Golden Globe Awards[22][23] Best Original Song Nominated
Golden Raspberry Awards[24] Worst Original Song "I Want Your Sex"
Music and Lyrics by George Michael		 Won
Golden Screen Awards Won
MTV Video Music Awards Best Video from a Film Bob Seger – "Shakedown" Nominated
NAACP Image Awards Outstanding Actor in a Motion Picture Eddie Murphy Nominated
Nickelodeon Kids' Choice Awards[25] Favorite Movie Won
Favorite Movie Actor Eddie Murphy Won

Literature

  • 1987: Robert Tine: Beverly Hills Cop II: A Novel, Pocket; Mti edition, ISBN 978-0671645212

References

  1. ↑ "BEVERLY HILLS COP II (15)". British Board of Film Classification. June 4, 1987. Retrieved November 28, 2015.
  2. ↑ Harmetz, Aljean (June 4, 1987). "FIGURING OUT THE FATES OF 'COP II' AND 'ISHTAR'". The New York Times. Retrieved April 13, 2020.
  3. ↑ Beverly Hills Cop II at the American Film Institute Catalog
  4. ↑ "Beverly Hills Cop II". Box Office Mojo. Retrieved December 11, 2023.
  5. ↑ Haflidason, Almar. "Beverly Hills Cop II DVD (1987)". BBC. Retrieved January 23, 2014.
  6. ↑ Friendly, David T. (September 11, 1986). "Exclusive Producer: Top Gun?". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved April 13, 2020.
  7. ↑ Clement, Nick (June 3, 2020). "The Billy Weber Interview: Part Two » We Are Cult". We Are Cult.
  8. ↑ "'Beverly Hills Cop II' Sets an Earnings Record". The New York Times. May 28, 1987. Retrieved September 29, 2010.
  9. ↑ "'Cop II' Retains Lead In Box Office Sales". The New York Times. June 3, 1987. Retrieved September 29, 2010.
  10. ↑ D'Alessandro, Anthony (July 15, 2002). "Top 50 worldwide grossers". Variety. p. 52, Paramount at 90 supplement.
  11. ↑ "1987 DOMESTIC GROSSES". Box Office Mojo. Retrieved January 23, 2014.
  12. ↑ "Beverly Hills Cop II (1987)". Rotten Tomatoes. Retrieved August 8, 2022.
  13. ↑ "Beverly Hills Cop II". Metacritic. Retrieved January 23, 2014.
  14. ↑ "Cinemascore :: Movie Title Search". December 20, 2018. Archived from the original on December 20, 2018. Retrieved July 27, 2020.
  15. ↑ Howe, Desson (May 22, 1987). "'Beverly Hills Cop II'". The Washington Post. Retrieved January 23, 2014.
  16. ↑ Ebert, Roger (May 22, 1987). "Beverly Hills Cop II". RogerEbert.com. Retrieved January 23, 2014.
  17. ↑ Maslin, Janet (May 20, 1987). "Beverly Hills Cop II (1987)". The New York Times. Retrieved January 23, 2014.
  18. 1 2 "Review: 'Beverly Hills Cop II'". Variety. Retrieved January 23, 2014.
  19. ↑ Benson, Sheila (May 20, 1987). "Movie Review : 'Cop Ii' Turns Up The Volume". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved December 25, 2010.
  20. ↑ Zehme, Bill (August 24, 1989). "The Rolling Stone interview: Eddie Murphy". Rolling Stone. p. 130.
  21. ↑ "The 60th Academy Awards (1988) Nominees and Winners". oscars.org. Retrieved July 31, 2011.
  22. ↑ "Beverly Hills Cop II – Golden Globes". HFPA. Retrieved July 5, 2021.
  23. ↑ "Films in Close Race for Globe Awards". Wilmington Morning Star. Associated Press. January 6, 1988. p. 6D. Retrieved January 23, 2014.
  24. ↑ "1987 Archive". Razzies.com. Archived from the original on May 1, 2014. Retrieved January 23, 2014.
  25. ↑ "All Winners". Nick.com. Retrieved January 23, 2014.
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