Beverly Hills Cop II (1987)

As it was said the film’s theatrical trailer: THE HEAT’S BACK ON, as Director Tony Scott (Top Gun, Man on Fire) takes the helm in directing Producers Don Simpson and Jerry Bruckheimer’s action-comedy BEVERLY HILLS COP II. Released in 1987, Street –smart Detroit Police Detective Axel Foley (Eddie Murphy) returns to Beverly Hills and reunites with Sgt. John Taggert (John Ashton) and Detective Billy Rosewood to investigate a series of “alphabet crimes” that Lt. Andrew Bogomil was investigating on. With Paul Reiser (TV’s Mad About You) as Detroit Police Detective Jeffrey Friedman and real life former Detroit Police Detective Gilbert R. Hill as Inspector Douglas Todd returning for the sequel, The film also stars Jürgen Prochnow (Das Boat) as Maxwell Dent, Brigeitte Nielsen (Cobra) as Karla Fry, Allen Garfield (The Conversation) as Beverly Hills Police Chief Harold Lutz, Dean Stockwell (Blue Velvet) as Charles “Chip” Cain, Paul Guilfoyle (TV’s CSI: Crime Scene Investigation) as Nikos “Nik” Thomomopolis, and special appearances by Robert Pastorelli (TV’s Murphy Brown) as Vinnie, Gilbert Gottfried (Disney’s Aladdin) as Sidney Bernstein, Chris Rock in his feature film debut as the Playboy Mansion Valet, and Hugh Hefner as himself. Cop II is much better than the first one, because this one was more action packed than what the first film had. I was shocked that Tony Scott, who's one of my favorite directors, was the man who directed this movie. He had previously worked with Simpson and Bruckheimer on TOP GUN, and was hired by them to direct the sequel. Tony said in interviews that Comedy was “not my strength and not my sort of leaning”. But he was a huge fan of Eddie Murphy and was very intimidated to work with him. Like in his other films, Tony made the tone of the movie look like a painting. I thought it was funny to see a young Chris Rock, who was 21 at the time, in his feature film debut. The reason how he got a role in the film was that Murphy saw him performing at a nightclub and befriended him. Filmed entirely on location in Los Angeles and Beverly Hills, California from November 1986 to February 1987, with a budget of $20 million, the film opened at #1 at the box office earning $33 million when it was released on May 20th, 1987. As it made a total domesticated gross of approximately $153,665,036, the film became the third biggest hit domestically at the box office that year, after FATAL ATTRACTION and THREE MEN AND A BABY and the second highest grossing film worldwide that year, behind FATAL ATTRACTION. BEVERLY HILLS COP II is a very entertaining sequel to the hit classic Beverly Hills Cop. Shame that the 3rd one isn't.