Beverly Hills Cop III, the anemic third entry in the action-comedy franchise, reunited star Eddie Murphy and director John Landis, who had previously collaborated on the hits Trading Places (1983) and Coming to America (1988). Despite the conspicuous exit of mega-producers Don Simpson and Jerry Bruckheimer, who had overseen both Beverly Hills Cop (1984) and Beverly Hills Cop II (1987), it would seem that this belated third installment was in good hands. Unfortunately, at this time both Murphy and Landis were in significant career declines, as they had swung and missed multiple times since Coming to America, Murphy with his directorial debut Harlem Nights (1989) and the political comedy The Distinguished Gentleman (1992) and Landis with the Sylvester Stallone vehicle Oscar (1991) and the horror-comedy Innocent Blood (1992).

Both were probably hoping that Beverly Hills Cop III would put some juice back in their careers, but instead it had the opposite effect, as the resulting film is easily the worst entry in the series—an almost shockingly dull police procedural set in a fictional amusement park that lacks the first film’s brash fish-out-water comedy and the second’s visual bombast. Landis and cinematographer Mac Ahlberg, a veteran of Swedish soft-core erotica and low-budget science fiction and horror like The Dungeonmaster (1984) and Ghoulies (1986), give the film a flat, unimaginative look that frequently borders on a made-for-TV aesthetic (it is hard to believe that the film went well over its $55 million budget). And, even when Landis tries to put together something exciting, such as a vertiginous sequence in which Murphy saves two children from a malfunctioning amusement park ride, the action is so badly filmed and edited and the special effects used to place Murphy in the middle of the action are so shoddy that it becomes more embarrassing than exciting.

Murphy returns as street-wise Detroit police detective Axel Foley, who we first see at the beginning of the film heading up a sting on an illegal chop shop in the middle of the night. Unbeknownst to him, everyone in the chop shop is about to be massacred by a counterfeit money enterprise headed by Ellis DeWald (Timothy Carhart), who is also the much beloved head of security at Wonder World, a Disney-esque mega-amusement-park in Santa Clara. When Foley tangles with DeWald and his goons, a Very Important Person to Him is shot and killed, thus fueling (once again) his return to Southern California to find out who is responsible and exact revenge. Foley is reunited with Billy Rosewood (Judge Reinhold), the goofball police detective who has been promoted to head of an interdepartmental agency, a role in which he takes great pride. This, of course, robs Cop III of the amusing odd-couple element supplied by Billy and his partner John Taggart, who is conveniently explained away by retirement in Arizona. In his place we get Jon Flint (Hector Elizondo), a mild-mannered, middle-aged Beverly Hills detective who happens to be friends with DeWald, thus raising questions about his involvement.

The screenplay by veteran action scribe Steven E. de Souza, who had co-written Murphy’s feature debut 48 Hrs. (1982), as well as ’80s action staples Commando (1985) and Die Hard (1988), goes through the motions, but offers little that is innovative or even very interesting, and at times it is downright ridiculous (in the aforementioned action sequence involving the malfunctioning amusement park ride, we are meant to believe that the thing goes haywire because bad guys cartoonishly break off a handle from the control panel). Similar to the first Beverly Hills Cop, there is very little mystery here; we know who did it, and the only questions is when Axel Foley will get him, which robs the proceedings of anything resembling tension or suspense. Unfortunately, Cop III also lacks the attitude that fueled the first two films, as Murphy attempts to play Foley as older and more restrained (several times characters refer to him as a “maverick,” and there is something almost desperate in their words, as if they are trying to convince us against all the evidence on screen). There are still flashes of the familiar character and the story relies again and again on Foley causing a scene to get his way, but Murphy’s performance is strangely lacking in energy and dynamism. Murphy said in several interviews in the late 1980s that he had no interest in doing a third Beverly Hills Cop film, and one can’t help but wonder if he still felt the same way when cameras were finally rolling.

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