Auteur archieven: Jeppe Kleijngeld

The Verdict: Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F.

Posted on by Jeppe Kleijngeld

Axel Foley is back! 40 years after the original and 30 years after the disappointing third movie, Foley enters the era of streaming. Some things have changed while other things remained the same. ‘The Heat Is On’ and the Axel F. theme by Harold Faltermeyer are still there and sound as catchy as ever. Eddie Murphy is back as well and his Axel can still do all these fantastic character impressions to get things done. The movie also sees the return of the original loved supporting characters, including Taggart who wasn’t even in the third one. Beverly Hills itself is pretty much the same as well: a five star resort for the rich and fabulous. Then some differences: these guys surely have aged although Murphy obviously took some Beverly Hills style cosmetic measures to hide it. It is a bit uncanny to see especially Eddie Murphy and Judge Reinhold (Billy Rosewood) as these two old geezers. Two new players in the Beverly Hills Police Department are played by Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Kevin Bacon. Good calls! There is not really a main bad guy though, so that must mean… You get the picture. Storywise, it is all very familiar. Foley returns to Beverly Hills to solve a case. The only difference is that Foley now has an estranged daughter who is working as a lawyer there. Since she is threatened by the same bad guys from Foley’s case, this gives him the opportunity to catch two birds with one stone. Three even, because he has some amends to make to his daughter. I was a bit worried about this movie, because keeping legendary heroes alive for too long isn’t always a good idea (see Indiana Jones for example), but in this case it worked: the humor, the action and most importantly the chemistry are still there.

Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F. is now available on Netflix

The verdict: to stream or not to stream? To stream

Beverly Hills Cop Revisited

Posted on by Jeppe Kleijngeld

On July 1, Netflix released Beverly Hills Cop: Alex F, exactly 30 years after Beverly Hills Cop III was released. To celebrate, FilmDungeon checked out the original trilogy which was an enjoyable trip down memory lane.

Beverly Hills Cop (1984, Martin Brest)

The tune is great, his laugh is a riot, and his inventive tricks to get things done are inspiring. Eddie Murphy stars as the wise-ass Detroit cop who goes to Beverly Hills to investigate the murder of his friend. He quickly makes new friends, including detective Billy Rosewood (Judge Reinhold) and sergeant John Taggart (John Ashton) who both return in the new movie! He makes plenty of enemies too because not everybody loves Axel’s freewheeling style. In Beverly Hills everything is done by the book, which clashes with his street smart ways. This is the basic gimmick of the first movie and it works like a charm. Murphy is in top form here, delivering funny wisecracks rapid fire style. The banana in the tailpipe is still hilarious and the traffic light gag that follows it is even better. If the new movie can capture any of this comedy magic, it will be fantastic. Let’s hope so…

Beverly Hills Cop II (1987, Tony Scott)

The second movie sees many of the cast and crew members return. Only directing duties were taken over by Tony Scott who had just delivered Top Gun (produced by Jerry Bruckheimer and Don Simpson, who also produced the first two Beverly Hills Cop movies). When his friend Andrew Bogomil (Ronny Cox) is shot, Foley returns to Beverly Hills to help solve the so-called Alphabet Crimes, a series of expertly carried out robberies. There is a new Chief of Police, and he is the biggest asshole of all time and arguably the film’s greatest villain. Murphy still has all these ‘types’ he can play to get things done, and they are often pretty funny. Only the script is poor, and some jokes didn’t age particularly well. But the dynamics between Foley, Taggert and Rosewood is still great, and Rosewood’s development to gun-toting, Rambo-style hero, is hilarious. These are the best two things about this sequel.

Beverly Hills Cop III (1994, John Landis)

More bad guys, more guns, more violent kills, but less humor. The third film in the series was written by Steven E. de Souza, the screenplay writer of Die Hard and Die Hard 2, and he turned it into Die Hard in an amusement park. Only since many of the action scenes would be too expensive, they turned the action down and made it more about Axel’s investigation taking place in an amusement park. Boring! Worse still, Murphy told new director John Landis that he preferred to play Axel as a more mature character. Bronson Pinchot, who reprises his role of Serge from the first film here, later said Murphy was pretty depressed during the shoot. It shows on the screen: Murphy’s performance comes across as mostly joyless. The film does deliver the series most dangerous villain with Ellis DeWald, played perfectly by Timothy Carhart. Still, overall this third entry was a letdown, so let’s hope Beverly Hills Cop: Alex F rocks the house again, so the series can conclude on a high note after all.

It’s Official: The Acolyte is Disney’s First Real Star Wars Failure

Posted on by Jeppe Kleijngeld

In recent years, Disney has released one Star Wars series after the other. Most were pretty good with especially The Mandalorian and Andor getting rave reviews. The latest is The Acolyte, of which the first two episodes were released on June 5 on Disney Plus.

If you ask the critics, the series is a successful addition to the SW universe. If you ask the fans you get quite a different view. At IMDb, the show is currently rated with a painful 3,4 and most of the 1.5 K user reviews are extremely negative. A sample of the comments: ‘Jar Jar Binks was a museum masterpiece next to this’, ‘this is laughably bad writing & direction’ and ‘the worst Star Wars project since the Holiday Special.’ Autch.

I am aware of the fact that Star Wars fans are notoriously difficult to please. Many of the prequels and sequels were also harshly criticized when they first came out, although since the Disney takeover of Lucas Film, the prequel films by George Lucas’ have risen somewhat in popularity again .

After viewing the first five episodes of The Acolyte, I have to say I am with the fans on this one though. Judging the series on the basis of plot, characters, acting, action and atmosphere, I find it to be a pretty terrible show. Yes, the fifth episode indeed contains some excellent lightsabre action, but because the writing is so weak, the showdowns lose almost all of their potential impact.

The Acolyte is the first series to venture outside of the Skywalker era. It takes place about a hundred years before the rise of the Empire in the peaceful High Republic era. The story revolves around a female force user who is killing off Jedi’s. Her twin sister is accused of the crime, but after her innocence is proven, she joins the Jedi in order to track down her sister and we learn of their family tragedy that caused her sister to crave for revenge. We also learn that she is guided by a dark master, whose appearance is very Sith-like.

The main point thematically, seems to be that the Jedi themselves can be an oppressive force, which in this case has resulted in the rise of evil. The problem is that the characters and their motivations are not one bit convincing. It is also problematic that this feels like another rise of the Sith story for which we have no need. Lucas has done this already in the prequels, and in my opinion he did a fine job, although certainly not flawless.

The show really gets embarrassing in episode 3 when the Witches are introduced: a new group of force users. The dialogues make George Lucas seem like a William Shakespeare. Things don’t improve in the following episodes. Were there no question marks with the producers when they read the scripts? What is it that convinced them to invest 180 million dollars (!) in this show? It’s mind boggling.

I am not gonna finish it after watching episode 5. It is now revealed who the bad guy is and frankly, I thought this was a terrible choice as well. I am not curious to find out what Sol is hiding nor do I care to find out how the relationship between the twin sisters is gonna develop. I am still interested in new Star Wars series by Disney, but The Acolyte is pretty much a disaster as far as I’m concerned. I can only hope that Disney will learn from this costly mistake.

Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans

Posted on by Jeppe Kleijngeld

Director: Werner Herzog
Written by: William M. Finkelstein
Cast: Nicolas Cage, Eva Mendes, Val Kilmer

Year / Country: 2009, USA
Running Time: 122 mins.

Loose remake of Abel Ferrara’s 1992 cult classic. Ferrara was pretty pissed when he heard about it and said he wanted the makers to ‘die in hell’. Nicolas Cage is the deranged central character who uses his badge to do bad things.

In the aftermath of the hurricane Katrina, Terence McDonagh (Cage) saves a convict from drowning which earns him a medal and a major back injury. He starts to take huge amounts of drugs for the pain. It starts with Vicodin, but soon he turns to heroin, cocaine and crack.

After he is promoted to lieutenant, McDonagh starts investigating the murder of a Senegalese family which eventually leads him to local dope boss Big Fate. His increased drug intake in the meantime, causes him to lose grip on reality. He also has a gambling debt that is getting way out of control.

Herzog’s version is a little lighter than Ferrara’s although there are some intense scenes as well, like the one in which McDonagh withholds oxygen from an old lady in a wheelchair to get information out of her. Another difference is that Keitel’s character is terrible from the beginning, while McDonagh degenerates more gradually during the film.

Cage is in one of his more weird modes, and it is a lot of fun to watch. So are his hallucinations of lizards and the sweet interactions with his girlfriend, the prostitute Frankie (Eva Mendes). Around her, he’s a different character. Cage and Mendes have a great chemistry.

This remake was perhaps a strange choice for a renowned filmmaker such as Herzog. It is not amongst his finest works, but it does have a lot of quality. Ferrara and Herzog met years after its release at the Locarno Film Festival and made peace. Despite its sound reviews, Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans was a box office flop.

Rating:

Biography: The German filmmaker Werner Herzog (1942, Munich) is considered as one of the most important directors alive. In 1961, when Herzog was 19, he started work on his first short film Herakles. He has since produced, written, and directed over 60 films and documentaries. Among his most important films are Aguirre, the Wrath of God (1972), Fitzcarraldo (1982), and the documentary Grizzly Man (2005).

Filmography (a selection): Herakles (1962, short) / Lebenszeichen (1968) / Auch Zwerge haben klein angefangen (1970) / Fata Morgana (1971) / Aguirre, der Zorn Gottes (1972) / Kaspar Hauser (1974) / Herz aus Glas (1976) / Stroszek (1977) / Nosferatu: Phantom der Nacht (1979) / Woyzeck (1979) / Fitzcarraldo (1982) / Wo die grünen Ameisen träumen (1984) / Cobra Verde (1987) / Echos aus einem düsteren Reich (1990) / Glocken aus der Tiefe – Glaube und Aberglaube in Rußland (1993) / Little Dieter Needs to Fly (1997) / Invincible (2001) / Wheel of Time (2003) / Grizzly Man (2005) / Rescue Dawn (2006) / Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans (2009) / Into the Abyss (2011) / Lo and Behold: Reveries of the Connected World (2016, doc)