The Pitch: Thirty years since his last West Coast adventure, Detective Axel Foley (Eddie Murphy) is still, well, Detective Axel Foley. While his contemporaries rose up the ranks and now flirt with retirement, Foley just can’t get enough of the streets. To paraphrase another film, for Foley, the action is the juice.

While celebrating his latest chaotic romp through Detroit to catch the bad guys, Foley gets a call from Billy Rosewood (Judge Reinhold) with not-so-good news: Someone tried to kill Foley’s estranged daughter (Taylour Paige), a Beverly Hills defense attorney, in the midst of her working a trial with potentially negative implications for the Beverly Hills Police Department.

Foley catches the first flight out of Detroit and while Jane is fine, it’s Rosewood who now finds himself on the wrong end of a gun. Foley teams with his reluctant daughter, a few old faces, and even a couple of new ones, to save his friend and uncover the nefarious behavior rooted in the Beverly Hills PD.

The Heat Is On: Calling the road to Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F an arduous one feels like an understatement — after 30 years in development, the fourth movie in the franchise that made Eddie Murphy one of the biggest celebrities in the world arrives just in time for the Fourth of July. It’s the latest joint from producer Jerry Bruckheimer, who, after pulling the biggest rabbit ever out of his hat with Top Gun: Maverick, tries resurrecting another parachute pants-era film series, with our older hero grappling with a modern world.

For the most part, Bruckheimer succeeds. Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F works not only because Murphy is engaged, but because everyone around him understands these movies sing when he and his ensemble play off each other. And, most surprisingly, the story interrogates Foley as a character, bringing us back to the depth shown in the ‘84 original.

Considering the Netflix release, Murphy, the writers, and director Mark Molloy (making his feature directorial debut) could’ve simply played the hits: put Axel in tough situations, let him talk his way out of them, shoot the bad guys, and create something dripping in nostalgia. But like Top Gun: Maverick, this movie has something to say about its main character and our world.