Beverly Hills Cop III

Beverly Hills Cop III
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	John Landis
Written by	Steven E. de Souza Characters: Danilo Bach and Daniel Petrie, Jr.
Produced by	Mace Neufeld Robert Rehme
Starring	Eddie Murphy Judge Reinhold Hector Elizondo Timothy Carhart John Saxon Theresa Randle Alan Young Stephen McHattie Bronson Pinchot
Distributed by	Paramount Pictures
Release date	May 25, 1994
Running time	10434242424 minutes
Country	Template:Film US
Language	English
Budget	$50,000,000
Box office	$119,208,989

Beverly Hills Cop III is a 1994 action-comedy film starring Eddie Murphy and directed by John Landis, who had previously worked with Murphy on Trading Places and Coming to America. It is the third film in the Beverly Hills Cop series.

Murphy returns as Detroit cop Axel Foley, who once again returns to Beverly Hills, California to stop a gang of counterfeiters, responsible for the death of his boss. Foley teams up with his friend, Beverly Hills detective Billy Rosewood (Judge Reinhold), and his investigation leads him to an amusement park known as Wonderworld. The film features a number of cameo appearances by well-known film personalities including Robert B. Sherman, Arthur Hiller, John Singleton, Joe Dante, special effects legend Ray Harryhausen, and George Lucas as a ride patron.

Beverly Hills Cop III was released on May 25, 1994 and grossed US$44 million in the United States, and over $75 million in the foreign box office. The film was considered by critics and admittedly by Murphy himself as the most disappointing film in the series.

Plot

During an assignment in Detroit, Axel Foley's (Eddie Murphy) boss Inspector Todd gets killed by Ellis DeWald (Timothy Carhart), and certain evidence points towards an amusement park called "Wonderworld". Axel Foley returns to Beverly Hills, California to search for Todd's killer. Upon arriving in Beverly Hills, Axel looks up his old friend, Billy Rosewood (Judge Reinhold), who has attained the title of DDOJSIOC (Deputy Director of Operations for Joint Systems Interdepartmental Operational Command). Foley's investigation into Wonderworld reveals that the park's private security force is a murderous counterfeit ring, operating under the command of Todd's killer, security boss Ellis DeWald, and park manager Orrin Sanderson (John Saxon).

The dialogue in the film reveals that Sergeant Taggart has retired; a detective named Jon Flint (Hector Elizondo) is effectively Rosewood's partner in the movie. The whereabouts of Andrew Bogomil is not mentioned (he was promoted to Police Chief at the end of the last movie). In the first scene in Rosewood's office, a framed photograph of himself, Foley, Taggart and Bogomil can be seen; this is the same photograph glimpsed in Bogomil's home in Beverly Hills Cop II.

Production

Writer Steven E. de Souza originally wrote the story as more “Die Hard in a theme park”. He was told that each of the rides he had designed would cost about $10 million to build and the whole film would cost about $70 million. When box office results for The Distinguished Gentleman came in, Paramount ordered the budget to be cut to $55 million. Paramount had earlier told Don Simpson and Jerry Bruckheimer that they would only outlay $25 million for a proposed version to be set in New York City, one of the main reasons that the super-producer team parted ways with the studio; they also tried to get Joel Silver to make the movie for an inadequate budget, and only conceded the film would need more money and time to make when successful producers Mace Neufeld and Robert Rehme took on the project. Consequently the film became more about the investigation and less about the action.

Production was temporarily shut down to allow the Paramount top brass the chance to get to grips with the film's spiraling budget. Originally estimated at $55 million, it was soon in excess of US$70 million. Of that budget, $15 million was Eddie Murphy's paycheck.

Wonderworld

The theme park featured in the film is California's Great America. However, some modifications were made to the Columbia Carousel and Vortex roller coaster. The park is in Santa Clara, California and not Beverly Hills as portrayed in the movie. Most of the Sky Whirl stunts were filmed in a studio. In this scene, George Lucas has a small part as the man Axel cuts in front of to get on the ride, also known as 'disappointed man' (this can be seen in the credits). The tunnels that supposedly ran under the park are a myth as well. No tunnels run under the park, as many thought after this was released. Many rides that were seen in the movie including Triple Play and the Sky Whirl (now a roller coaster) have since been removed. Also, the carousel at the back of the park (a single story one, not the Columbia Carousel) was altered. The single story one was removed for Drop Zone. The ride featured in the rescue scene at the park was Triple Wheel (formerly known as Sky Whirl). Since the movie was made, the ride has been demolished and scrapped.

The Alien Attack ride featured in the Wonderworld theme park was in fact the Earthquake: The Big One attraction from the Universal Studios Florida theme park in Orlando, Florida. The "aliens" featured in the ride are suited actors (and not animatronic as suggested in the film) which closely resembled the Cylons from the original Battlestar Galactica.

The film's director John Landis hired the Sherman Brothers to write the "Wonderworld Song" which appears throughout the second half of the movie. The song is a comedic take on their own signature song, "It's A Small World".

Robert B. Sherman also makes a cameo in the film. In the film, he sits next to Arthur Hiller and Ray Harryhausen in a bar when they hear that "Uncle Dave" is shot. "Uncle" Dave Thornton is the owner of Wonderworld; he is played by Alan Young) as a character modeled loosely after Walt Disney, the Sherman Brothers' mentor. Richard Sherman was filmed in a cameo as a band leader, but it was cut from the final version of the film.

Soundtrack

Main article: Beverly Hills Cop III (soundtrack)

A soundtrack containing mostly R&B music was released on May 10, 1994 by MCA Records. It peaked at 158 on the Billboard 200 and 66 on the Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums.

Critical response

The film was criticized for many reasons. For one, fans of the series missed John Ashton (who portrayed John Taggart), Ronny Cox (Andrew Bogomil) and Paul Reiser (Jeffrey Friedman), who did not reprise their roles. Secondly, original producers Don Simpson and Jerry Bruckheimer were not involved in the production as they were previously. Many critics felt the movie was a generic, formulaic action-comedy film. Critics also felt Eddie Murphy gave a somewhat routine performance as Axel Foley. In an interview in 1994, Eddie Murphy said that Beverly Hills Cop III is "different from the trilogy's first installment because Axel is more mature and no longer the wisecracking rookie cop."

In a 2005 interview, John Landis claimed that Eddie Murphy worked against the comedy of Beverly Hills Cop III. Landis said that the movie "was a very strange experience. The script was not any good, but I figured, 'So what? I will make it funny with Eddie.' I mean, one of the worst scripts I ever read was [the original] Beverly Hills Cop. It was a piece of shit, that script. But the movie is very funny because Eddie Murphy and Martin Brest made it funny. And with Bronson Pinchot... that was all improvised. Everything funny in that movie is not in the screenplay, so I thought, 'Well, we will do that.' But then I discovered on the first day when I started giving Eddie some shtick, he said, 'You know, John... Axel Foley is an adult now. He is not a wiseass anymore.' I believe he was very jealous of Denzel Washington and Wesley Snipes doing these [straight roles]. So, with Beverly Hills Cop III, I had this strange experience where he was very professional, but he just was not funny. I would try to put him in funny situations, and he would find a way to step around them. It is an odd movie. There are things in it I like, but it is an odd movie."

In an interview with The A.V. Club in 2009, Bronson Pinchot claimed that Eddie Murphy "was really depressed" at the time Beverly Hills Cop III was being filmed: "Eddie was going through his period at the time of doing movies that were not hits, and he was very low-spirited, low-energy. I said to him, "All anyone ever wants to know when they meet me is what you’re like." And he said, "I bet they don’t ask that anymore." And then when we did a scene, we were shooting, and he was so low-energy that John Landis sent him upstairs and said, "Just rest, Eddie, and I’ll do the scene with Bronson." So whenever you see my face in the movie, I’m not really talking to Eddie, I’m talking to John Landis. And I can understand it — he was just having a bad stretch...I don’t know what started the funk, but it lasted a chunk of time, and that was in the belly of the funk, and he was just really sad and low-energy and I basically did the scene without him there."

Eddie Murphy first said he thought "Beverly Hills Cop III was infinitely better than Beverly Hills Cop II. " He later claimed during an interview in 2006 that he felt the third film was "atrocious" and such a disgrace that "the character was kind of banished for a while [from Hollywood]." He said he felt the third film did not reveal enough of the "edginess" of Axel that was present in the first two films. He also said he hopes to return the edgy qualities to the character for the fourth film, and is going to pay more attention to the development of the project and its quality.

Based on the criticism, the film was nominated for two Golden Raspberry Awards, for Landis as Worst Director and the film as Worst Remake or Sequel.

Sequel

Main article: Beverly Hills Cop (film series) § Future

External links

• Beverly Hills Cop III at IMDb