It's been announced that Eddie Murphy is going to return to Beverly Hills (well, actually Detroit) for a fourth instalment of Beverly Hills Cop. After an ill-fated attempt to get a TV series off the ground, it seems Murphy isn't prepared to let it go and seems intent on ruining Beverly Hills Cop for everyone.

Enlisting Brett Ratner - who started the very meh Rush Hour series - and with Jerry Bruckheimer producing, it looks as though they're really giving it a sporting chance. Say what you want about Ratner, but he is able to do action comedy. The only thing is, however, is that he hasn't scored a huge hit in some time. With his Dwayne 'The Rock' Johnson-starring Hercules looking like an over-the-top Conan The Barbarian remake, Ratner's eager to not let the recent string of flops get him down.

Aside from his very decent performance in Dreamgirls, Eddie Murphy's luck at the box office has been in a downward spiral since, well, forever. He hasn't had a critical and commercial hit in some time and by going back to the well with Beverly Hills Cop, it shows just how desperate he's become. 

Fourth instalments of films never do well. Lethal Weapon 4, Indiana Jones & The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, Terminator: Salvation - all fourth instalments and all mediocre at best and laughably bad at worst. Not only that, if the TV series didn't pan out, there's just no way a movie is going to do well.

Think of it like this - if there was a real demand and a real desire out there for another Beverly Hills Cop movie, they would have made one. The Hollywood machine is clever enough to smell a remake when there is one. Not only that, the last one was so terrible - it currently stands at 10% on Rotten Tomatoes - it put the kybosh on the franchise.

If Eddie Murphy wants to get his career back on track, he should start from the beginning. Raw and Delirious are two of the finest examples of stand-up comedy and are still very, very funny. There was rumours circulating a few years back that he may possible make a return to standup, although nothing ever came of it.

 

 

Don't get us wrong, we'd love to see a Beverly Hills Cop film. We would. But the reality is that it's time has passed. Beverly Hills Cop is a quintessential 80's movie. The music, the plot, the actors - it's all very much of its time. It's not to say that it can't be updated, but how successfully can it be updated? The answer, we think, is not at all.