Travel Companions

Planes, Trains and Automobiles

Director: John Hughes

Cast: Steve Martin, John Candy, Laila Robbins, Dylan Baker, Michael McKean, Kevin Bacon

Released: November 25, 1987

This is a movie I've always wanted to review around Thanksgiving. It seems like there aren't that many Thanksgiving movies out there. I know there's Home for the Holidays with Jodie Foster and Claire Danes and I'm pretty sure I remember one that starred Patricia Clarkson and Katie Holmes. It's called Pieces of April. I had to look that up; I would have never remembered that. Oh, and I double checked Home for the Holidays and Holly Hunter starred in it; Jodie Foster directed it. Wikipedia has a whole list of Thanksgiving movies, but most of them are movies that contain a Thanksgiving scene. Like, I remember the Thanksgiving scene in Brokeback Mountain, but I certainly wouldn't call it a Thanksgiving movie. Now there is actually no Thanksgiving feast scene in Planes, Trains and Automobiles, but the plot revolves around Neal Page (Steve Martin) trying to get home in time for Thanksgiving, so I would say that this is a Thanksgiving movie. 

It's two days before Thanksgiving and Neal, who works in advertising, is in New York for a meeting. His client is very indecisive and can't decide which print ad he likes best for his cosmetic company and just keeps mulling over the ads. Neal keeps looking at his watch impatiently. He discreetly takes out a plane ticket and we see why he's so antsy. He's scheduled to take a six o'clock flight to Chicago. I swear the ticket says he's supposed to land at 6:45, but there's no way that can be right. It probably says 8:45 as he told his wife that he would be home by 9. (Though there's no way you would get home in fifteen minutes after landing!) Now they linger on the ticket for a good while so the viewer can read it, but yet they felt the need to highlight the part about what time the flight left. 

When he and his colleague finally get out of the meeting, his colleague tells him he's going to take the eight o'clock flight home because there's no way he'd make the six o'clock flight. Neal is going to look back at this moment and just wished he had taken this flight. All he has to do is call his wife and tell her he's going to be a little later than expected. Now that flight was probably cancelled because of the weather, but he wouldn't have been in the predicament he will soon find himself in! 

In the bustling streets of Manhattan, Neal is in a long line of people waiting for a cab, but he gets out of line and tries to find one on his own. We see a man on the opposite side of the street who is also trying to hail a taxi and they both spot one at the same time. It's a little down the street and they both start running, on opposite sides of the street. It looks like Neal is going to get there first, but just as he's about to reach it, he trips over this huge clunky trunk and the other man gets there first and salutes Neal as he gets in. The man is played by Kevin Bacon and I thought for sure he was going to appear again in some capacity, but he never does. I watched this on Paramount Plus and he's the third name listed. True, it's probably because after Steve Martin and John Candy, he's the next biggest name (with all due respect to Dylan Baker and Michael McKean), but it's just so weird to see him in this role without any lines. I wouldn't even call it a cameo. The only thing that would have made it work for me is if he was playing himself (because that would have been hilarious), but I didn't get that sense. 

Neal runs up to a businessman who's just hailed a cab and pleads if he could have it because he's "desperately" late for his flight and was "wondering if I could appeal to your good nature to ask you to let me have it." The man replies, "I don't have a good nature." Neal offers him ten dollars and even that made me scoff. Like, seriously? That seems low even for 1987. And we know he can afford more because he lives in a house that looks a lot like the Home Alone house (but with no circular driveway). They bargain and eventually the price is raised to $75 (due to the other guy conning him; Neal had settled on $50 and the guy told him anyone who would pay $50, would pay $75 which makes no sense to me except for the fact that he knew he could take advantage of a desperate man). While they're barraging, we see the same trunk Neal tripped over earlier being lifted up and put into the trunk of the cab with the help of the taxi driver. We don't see the person but we all know it's John Candy's character. (Who else would it be?) This is happening right next to Neal and I don't know how he doesn't notice this. Does he not see this in his peripheral vision? The taxi screeches off right after he has given the other man the money. He picks up his briefcase and luggage and starts running after the cab and I'm impressed he's actually able to catch up to it when it stops at a red light. He tells the passenger (who is indeed the character played by John Candy) that this is his cab and to get out. The passenger looks startled, but the light turns green and the taxi speeds off. 

Neal ends up taking the bus and at 5:58, he is rushing towards the gate. I know this was before 9/11, but even that is cutting it close! There's no way they would let a person on a plane with only two minutes! Right? Right?! Well, it turns out the flight is delayed so he's not getting on the six o'clock anyway. He looks really disappointed and I'm thinking, he should be glad because there's no way they would have let him on the original flight anyway! He calls his wife to tell her about the delay. He has three young kids; the middle one is played by a pre-Mrs. Doubtfire and Boy Meets World Matthew Lawrence. His oldest child (she's probably nine or ten) is super annoying. When Neal calls, she keeps demanding her mom to tell her who's on the phone and keeps repeating, "Who IS IT?" STFU, little girl. 

While waiting for the flight, Neal looks across and sees a guy reading a book called "The Canadian Mounted" and instantly recognizes him as the man who took his cab. He calls him out on it and the man apologizes and wants to make it up to him. He offers to get Neal a hot dog and beer, but Neal tells him no thanks. Then he start spouting a bunch of other food and drinks (mostly drinks as he mentions coffee, tea, milk, and a slurpee) he could offer, but Neal says no. 

When boarding the plane, Neal is told he will be seating in coach. He's pretty angry because he bought his first class ticket a month ago. The flight attendant is pretty short with him; she's not very professional at all which seems to be a running theme in this movie. I can't blame him; I'd be pretty ticked off too if I didn't get the seat I paid for. She does tell him he'll be refunded. I think he just needs to cut his losses and accept his fate. He'll get his money back and the flight will only be less two hours (well that's what the intended flight should be!). To make matters worse for Neal, he's sitting next to the man he just met. The man introduces himself as Del Griffith and tells him he sells shower curtain rings. That's an object you use, but something you never think about. Don't most shower rings come with the shower curtain? Unless he's selling them to shower curtain companies...I dunno, but it's just amusing that's what he sells. 

Instantly, you know that Del is one of those people who constantly runs his mouth. Neal tells him politely that he's not much of a conversationalist and would like to read his magazine. Del tells him he understand. But I don't think he does: "The last thing I want to be remembered as is an annoying blabbermouth....you know, nothing grinds my gear worse than some chowder-head who doesn't know when to keep his big trap shut...You catch me running off at the mouth, just give me a poke in the chops." Neal is clearly becoming annoyed. Del takes off his shoes and makes a big scene of how relieved he feels. Then, even worse, he takes off his socks and is making loud groaning sounds about how it feels good to let his feet breathe and he starts waving is socks around near Neal's face. Del is what you would call self-unaware. 

Because of the bad weather, they end up landing in Wichita, Kansas. He calls his wife to let her know. She is so dumb: "I don't understand what Wichita has to do with a snowstorm in Chicago." Duh, they had to be rerouted because they couldn't land. Neal has to explain this to his idiotic wife.

There's no flights out of Wichita and Neal tries to call hotels looking for a room, but nothing is available. When Del tells him he booked a rom at the Braidwood Inn and tells him he'll make sure Neal gets a room because he (Del) knows the manager if Neal will pick up the cab fare. Neal is hesitant at first, but then agrees when he sees a guy sleeping by a trash receptacle. 

The motel is clearly in a seedy part of town. During the time they're checking in, they both give the manager, Gus, their Diners Club cards. There's a mix up and somehow they end up with each other's cards which nobody notice because Del is chatting with Gus. There are no names on the cards (which is odd) which is why they don't realize they have the wrong cards. This will come back later.

They are told there is only one room left, which means they'll be sharing a room with one (small!) bed. It's a little awkward when they enter the small room and see the single bed, but they don't mention anything about it.

While Neal is in the bathroom taking a shower, Del starts taking stuff out of his trunk including a framed photo of a woman who is his wife which he places on the bedside table next to him. Carrying around framed photos is just odd to me...even in 1987. I know people didn't have smart phones with pictures back then, but they could put a small photo in their wallet. 

In the shower, the water shuts off while Neal is shampooing his his hair and he gets shampoo in his eyes. (As you can probably imagine, this is a crappy motel.) It does turn back on and when he's done with his shower, he opens the sliding door to see a huge mess. There are wet towels strewn across the floor (along with a wet newspaper) and the countertop has toiletries scattered about everywhere. There's only one single small washcloth on the rack that Neal uses to dry off with. This scene confused me so much because it couldn't have happened before Neal took a shower or otherwise he would have for sure said something. Did Del come in while Neal was in the shower? I don't think Neal would have liked that very much! But if Del came in, why didn't they show that? There's no way Neal wouldn't have heard him. But if he's using all the towels, that would have implied that he showered first and Neal should have seen this mess BEFORE he took a shower. I am so confused! I guess there was a deleted scene of Del messing up the bathroom while Neal was in the shower. Still doesn't make any sense to me. Anyway, I would have been livid if somebody just made a big mess like that and used ALL the towels. Not cool, dude.

As they're getting settled in (the very small!) bed, we find out the Neal's side of the bed is damp with beer because the cans had exploded when Del opened them because they had been sitting on the bed which had been vibrating. (What is the deal with vibrating beds anyway? I feel like they're alway in '80s movie, more specifially John Hughes movies because there was one in National Lampoon's Family Vacation.) 

As Neal tries to sleep, Del is doing his (what I assume) sleeping ritual. This includes cracking his knuckles, itching some part of his body (I can only imagine what), then most annoyingly, starts doing some weird snorting noises with his throat. Neal can't take it anymore and jumps out of bed in a heap of rage and Del explains to him that if he doesn't clear his sinuses, he'll snore all night. He couldn't do that in that bathroom? Neal just explodes and tells Del he's been "under [his] skin since New York, starting with ripping off [his]  cab." He goes on a tirade about how Del talks too much and has nothing interesting to stay. He goes a little beneath the belt, but I can understand why he's annoyed with him.

Then sad, inspirational music comes on as Del agrees that he talks too much, but says he's not changing because, as he says, "I like me. My wife likes me. My customers like me 'cause I'm the real article. What you see is what you get."

I think Neal should have focused more on Del's inconsiderate habits (like taking and using all the clean towels in a hotel room or smoking in the room) rather than make it super personal. Here he's just downright cruel to Del and the audience is meant to feel bad for him, but I would find him annoying as well. If somebody just left me with a washcloth to dry off with, that person is dead to me. Getting out of a shower and not having a towel to dry off would make me very cranky. 

Neal doesn't say anything, but he looks a little guilty. They both get in bed and during the night we see someone breaking in and stealing their money from their wallets. Apparently, there was a deleted scene where they order pizza and they gave the pizza guy a terrible tip and he broke in and robbed them. They need to keep this scene in because they will soon discover their money is gone.

In the morning, we see a bunch of crap on Del's side of the bed, including beer cans and an empty Cracker Jacks box. It looks like most of the caramel popcorn got on the bed and spread on his pillow and pajamas...gross! 

The camera pans to show that a sleeping Del is spooning against a sleeping Neal and kisses his ear as Neal smiles. Seriously, he can't tell that's not his wife? Something tells me Del's breath doesn't smell like his wife's breath! His arm is draped over Neal who is holding his hand. Neal wakes up, realizing what just happened and we get this hilarious exchange:

"Del, why did you kiss my ear?" 

"Why are you holding my hand?" 

"Where's your other hand?"

"Between two pillows." 

"Those aren't pillows!"

They both quickly jump out of bed and start talking about the Bears so they seem manly.

Neal goes into the bathroom only to see Dels dirty socks in the sinks. Even worse, he reaches for something to dry his face with after washing it, but we all know there are no towels left and he grabs Del's underwear. He doesn't realize until after he's used it what it is...ewww! I can only hope it was clean underwear, but who are we kidding. Blergh!    

They have breakfast at a diner where Neal tells Del he called the airport who said everything is booked solid, but he has "a good chance of getting on stand by." Del says there's no way either of them will be getting on a flight, but he has a friend who works for the railroad and suggests taking a train. They get the check which Neal says he'll pay for. He says he doesn't mind as long as Del can get him on that train. He opens his wallet to see his money is gone. He thinks Del took his money and when he glares at Del and Del says, "What?", I love how Neal replies, "You know goddamn well what." He had $700 cash in there! Who carries around that much cash? Del gives him his wallet and tells him the exact amount he has and to go ahead and count it, but when Neal opens it, it's also empty. 

Del looks at the positive side (he did have $200 that was stolen, but at least it wasn't $700!) and says since the thief didn't take their credit cards, they can just charge their way home. That honestly seemed like the no duh answer to me that I looked up to see what people used their credit cards for in the '80s and discovered that people really used them for big purchases or emergencies. I guess I would count this as an emergency! Neal asks what cards Del has and he has a Visa and a gasoline card. Del has a card for "Chalmer's Big and Tall Men's Shop" which is a chain in the Pacific Northwest. I love how he adds, "Unfortunately, it does us no good here." Like, even if that store was in the Midwest, it's not going to help with their travels!    

They are picked up by Gus's (the manger of the motel) son who has arrived in a huge pickup truck. Both Neal and Del are a little weary when they meet Owen (Dylan Baker) who keeps snorting and spitting. Right after introducing himself and before shaking Neal's hand, he spits in his mouth and Neal is just grimacing as he touches his hand. Ewwww. I think in this instance, you can refuse to shake a hand, right? The face Steve Martin makes everytime Owen snorts is so funny. 

Del and Neal grab Del's trunk, but Owen tells them his wife will get it and that she's stronger than she looks. She's sitting in the car with a toddler and a baby, but the two guys quickly say they'll get the trunk. They ride in the back with a dog. It's vey cold and the ride to the train station is "no more than forty-five miles". By the time they arrive, they are covered in frost. 

Their seat tickets for the train aren't together. Del is a little upset, but you can can tell Neal is trying to hide his glee that he won't have to sit next to his traveling mate and that he's finally gotten to get rid of him. He explains the train being full because of the holidays, which is true. Del asks if he wants to meet later and get a drink at the bar car, but Neal says he plans to sleep and tells him, "It's been interesting." As Neal walks away, Del calls after him saying he needs his address so he can send him money for the ticket, but Neal says it's a gift. I assume he's feeling quite generous since he will never have to see this man again (so he thinks!). 

Of course, we know it can't be that easy and the train breaks down somewhere near Jefferson City. Everyone is told if they walk a mile to the highway, the trucks will take them to the bus station. Neal sees Del struggling with his trunk and helps him carry it.

Now they (and everybody else) are on a bus traveling from Missouri's capital to St. Louis. This has to be their worst form of transportation. It's so terrible it's not even mentioned in the title! (Though I'm assuming a bus counts as an automobile.) The bus is full and cramped, there's a kid running up and down the aisle, a couple sitting across from them is getting hot and heavy, then they start smoking. I know it was used as a joke, but I would be LIVID if someone on a bus started smoking! This is something I noticed about this movie: that people are always smoking. Del, especially. We already saw him smoking in the motel room and in diners. 

At the bus stop in St. Louis, Del starts conning people by selling them shower rings and telling them they're earrings or rings (that's a big ass ring!) autographed by people like Diane Sawyer or Darryl Strawberry or Walter Cronkite. At one point he says the earring were "handcrafted by the grand wizard of China in the fourth century." He admits these aren't the originals, "but they are very good replicas." 

The two travel companions are eating at a diner when Neal starts to say, "You know, I've been thinking that when we put our heads together, you know, we really..." As he's saying this, Del starts to smile, thinking Neal is going to say how good they are together, but Neal finishes the sentence with, "we've really gotten nowhere and I think I'm holding you up." Del's smile falls but reluctantly agrees to part ways. 

Neal is dropped off by the bus in a parking lot of rental cars. He goes to the marked spot where his car is supposed to be but it is empty. Rightly, he is upset. He is very upset. He calls after the bus that dropped him off, but it's too far away and he's not going to make it. He has to make the long trek back to the building where the rental car agency is. This includes walking along a busy highway and across a busy airport and sliding down a steep embankment where he nearly gets hit by a bus. This probably has to be the worst thing that happens to him during the entire jaunt. 

When an irate Neal gets to the counter, the car rental agent (Edie McClurg) is talking on the phone, but it's obviously a personal call because she's talking about Thanksgiving plans with a family member. I feel like they have this in here for the audience to be annoyed at her so that maybe Neal's rant at her will be justified. I think it would have been just as effective if she was professional, but had the super chirpy annoying personlity which is part of the reason Neal lashes out at her. This woman has a LONG LINE of customers. Why is she taking a personal call?  

This is probably the most famous scene of the movie and the scene you remember the most if you've only seen it a couple times. When she asks Neal if she can help him, he tells her, "You can give me a f'ing automobile." After she tells him, "I really don't care for the way you're talking to me", he starts in on his tirade: "And I really don't care how your f'ing company left me in the middle of f'ing nowhere with f'ing keys to a f'ing car that isn't f'ing there. And I really didn't care to walk down a f'ing highway and across a f'ing runway to get back here to have you smile in my f'ing face. I want a f'ing car right f'ing now." All these f***s pay off because after the agent asks to see his rental agreement and he says he threw them away, she tells him, "You're f***ed." But seriously, I want to know what happened to his rental car. Why wasn't it there? 

He tries to get a taxi to take him all the way to Chicago (how much would THAT cost, I wonder?), but ends up meeting up with Del where he will share a ride with him. Del tells him, "You know, I had a feeling that when we parted ways, somehow, someday our paths would cross again." (Yeah, they would cross again literally the same day!)

When Neal takes his turn at the wheel, it's dark outside. Del is trying to get adjusted to his seat, but can't seem to get comfortable and keeps messing around with it. When they switch, there's a funny payoff when the passenger seat launches Neal forward so his nose is pressed up agains the windshield. While Neal is sleeping, Del is driving and lip syncing along to "Mess Around" by Ray Charles. He's mimicking all the instruments in the song like the piano and saxophone. At one point when he's playing the "piano", both his hands are off the steering wheel and he's closing his eyes to emulate Ray Charles. Probably not the best thing to do when you're driving! This causes the car to start to veer off the road a couple times. I don't know how this or the loud music doesn't wake up Neal, but he only stirs a couple of times. Once again Del is smoking in the car, which seems very inconsiderate, but I know they are only doing this for plot purposes because he throws the cigarette out the window, but it flies back into the back window and lands on the back seat. 

Del is wearing his heavy blue parka and decides to take it off. I understand it's late November, but he's also wearing a sweater under his coat, so I don't know how he wasn't roasting well before now! If I'm driving a long ways in cold weather, I always take my coat off. I just let my car's heater do its thing. I would rather be cold at first and eventually warm up rather than be uncomfortable and roasting in my winter coat. He starts to take off one sleeve of the coat, but it gets caught in the seatbelt mechanism so now his arm is caught in the sleeve. While he's trying to get free, the car starts careening all over the highway. He's lucky this isn't a busy highway. Somehow Neal doesn't wake during this...he must be a heavy sleeper. Del tries to take his coat off at the other arm but it also gets tangled in some other mechanism and now both his arms are caught up in his coat and he has no hands to drive with so he uses his knees. Guess what? Driving with your knees? Not very effective! At this point I'm wondering he's not waking up Neal to help him out. He's not even calling his name. It would be one thing if he shouted his name and Neal was so out of it he didn't hear him, but it's not like he's even trying to ask for help. 

He ends up driving across the road and onto the opposite one. The car spins around and this wakes up Neal who asks, "What's happening?" and Del tells him they almost hit a deer. 

Already, them driving in the car is the most memorable of the transportations they take and it's about to get even crazier. I mentioned earlier there are few cars on the road and this is probably a good thing as they are now going the wrong way. Neither of them seem to realize this, not even when a couple in a car going parallel with them across the median screams at them, "You're going the wrong way!" Del just honks back, thinking the guy wants to race, but he's making motions at Del to turn around. You would think Del or Neal would wonder why the car on the opposite side of the road was going in the same direction as them. When Neal tells Del the guy is telling them they're going the wrong way, Del asks, "How would he know where we're going?" He assumes the guy is drunk (which is probably what the guy is thinking about them!) and mimes drinking from a bottle. I just don't understand how neither of them could figure this out! The guy tries to clear is up by shouting, "You're going in the wrong direction!" Finally, Neal seems to figure it out, but now two semis have appeared, side by side. There's no time to do anything and they end up driving between the trucks with the outer parts of the car being scraped off. I'm sorry, but there's no way that a car could fit (even snugly) between two semi trucks. That car would have been totaled. 

After the trucks have passed by them, Del slams on the brake and their luggage goes flying over the car onto the street. The trunk had been propped open to fit Del's large piece of luggage which is how everything went flying out. I'm honestly surprised the trunk (Del's luggage, not the back of the car) didn't pop open when it was catupulted onto the asphalt. 

After turning the car around so they're facing the correct way, they both get out and Del inspects the damage and claims "it doesn't look too bad" which I agree with since in real life it would have been much, much worse. They get their luggage off the road and pull it to the side. They sit down on Del's trunk with the car behind them. It isn't long before the unmistakable sound of a fire starting is heard and they both look behind them to see the car is on fire and they just start laughing because that's all they can do. 

Remember the scene at the motel when their Diners Club cards were switched by accident? It turns out Del rented the car with Neal's card, but he put it back in Neal's wallet. There was a scene earlier where Neal had put his wallet in the pocket of the side door and asked Del to remind him not to forget about it. Right away I knew he was gong to forget it or something was going to happen. And it did: it caught on fire. 

They drive to a motel in the burned car. There's no way that thing would be cool enough to touch, let alone sit in even when all the flames have gone out! A joke will be made about the car being so hot to sit in that Del is sure there are grill marks on his behind. There's a funny moment when Neal is trying to get a room at the motel and gives the manager his credit cards which have all been burnt to a crisp. He ends up getting a room by giving the guy $17 in cash plus his watch. Del has nothing to offer but two dollars and a Cassio watch (it's funny when he tries to model it over his wrist) and ends up outside in the car bundled in his parka.  Neal feels bad when he sees him sitting in the cold so he invites him in. Luckily, this room has two separate beds. 

Oh, yeah, before Neal invites Del into his room, he tries to call his wife with the room's rotary phone, but the phone is locked so you can't dial the numbers all the way. WTF? Why would they have that locked? I guess it's to serve the tension of the movie for the wife to wonder why her husband has barely been able to keep in touch with her. 

Also, before Del is invited inside, he starts speaking aloud to his wife as he's sitting in his car: "Well, Marie, once again, my dear you were right as rain. I am, without a doubt, the biggest pain in the butt that ever came down the pike." Right away I knew his wife was dead. It also explained the framed photo of his wife being carried with him everywhere. That had a very posthumous feel. 

In the hotel room, Neal is laying in his bed and Del is sitting in a chair. Both are talking and joking and eating snacks with little bottles of liquor. Neal likes his combination of Doritos and tequila. Before he goes to bed, he tells Del, "as much trouble as I've had on this little journey, I'm sure one day I'm gonna look back and laugh." At least he's able to laugh about it now. 

Their car had been backed into a parking space in front of the room they were staying in. When they leave, Del accidentally reverses the car and it backs into the front of their room, just demolishing the wall. That was a laugh out loud moment for me. They hightail it out of there before anyone sees (more likely catches) them. I love that Del uses his arm when he's signaling.  

On their (nearly) last leg of the trip, they are stopped by a police officer (played by Michael McKean) for going too fast, but let's be honest, they'd be stopped just for driving that death trap. The officer asks Del if he knows how fast he was going and Del replies, "Our speedometer's melted, and as a result, it's very hard to say with any degree of accuracy exactly how fast we were going." The officer asks, "Do you feel this vehicle is safe for highway travel?" I love Del's genuine reply: "Yes, I do. Yes, I really do." 

The officer stars to tick off all the problems: No outside mirror, no functioning gauges (including the speedometer!), but Del informs him the radio still works, somehow. The officer tells them the vehicle is not safe to drive and it will be impounded. It's honestly a miracle it wasn't impounded earlier.

Del has found a semi truck driver to take them the rest of the way to Chicago (maybe not all the way home but at least to the L train station), however they need to sit in the trailer which is refrigerated since it's carrying boxes of cheese. They aren't allowed to sit in the cab with the driver because he doesn't like people sitting next to him. Del tells Neal he's going to be in Chicago "in less than three hours." 

Before they part at the train station, Neal tells Del he appreciates him helping him get home. They have a nice, sincere exchange and even hug before Neal gets on the train. He's now only a few miles away from his house and seeing his wife and kids and enjoying a Thanksgiving dinner with his family. He starts thinking about what's waiting for him at home until he starts thinking about all the crazy things that happened to him in the last forty-eight hours and starts smiling and shaking his head, as if he's thinking, What a crazy story I'll have to tell my children and my eventual grandchildren! You know he's pulling this story out at family gatherings for decades to come! 

Then the music starts to turn somber as he thinks about the times Del mentioned his wife and when he told Neal he hadn't been home in years and comes to the realization that maybe Del doesn't have anywhere or  anyone to go home to for Thanksgiving. He returns back the station where Del is sitting on a bench. He tells Neal he doesn't have a home and that Marie's "been dead for eight years." 

The next scene is of them walking up the street to Neal's house with each of them carrying a handle of Del's trunk while an instrumental version of Everytime You Go Away plays. Neal is reunited with his family and Del meets Neal's wife and kids and parents and parents-in-law and everyone is happy. 

I am a little confused as how they got to Neal's house from the train station because if they had taken a cab, it would have stopped right in front of the house and let them out, but we don't see that, plus they wouldn't have any money to take one. Did they walk from the train station to Neal's house in the suburbs? There's no way they would have walked all that way lugging that heavy trunk, plus Neal's own luggage. I feel like we missed an important part of the puzzle on the very last leg of the trip. 

The movie ends on a freeze frame of Del's face looking happy and thankful to be celebrating Thanksgiving with a family who has invited him in. Makes you wonder how long Neal let him stay at his house.

BHPD

Beverly Hills Cop

Director: Martin Brest

Cast: Eddie Murphy, Judge Reinhold, John Ashton, Ronny Cox, Steven Berkoff, Jonathan Banks

Released: December 5, 1984

Oscar nomination:

Best Original Screenplay - Daniel Petrie Jr. and Danilo Bach (lost to Robert Benton for Places in the Heart)

Beverly Hills Cop II

Director: Tony Scott

Cast: Eddie Murphy, Judge Reinhold, John Ashton, Ronny Cox, Brigitte Nielsen, Dean Stockwell, Paul Reiser, Jurgen Prochnow

Released: May 20, 1987

Oscar nomination: 

Best Original Song - "Shakedown" by Harold Faltermeyer, Keith Forsey, and Bob Seger  (lost to ("I've Had) the Time of My Life" by Frank Previte, John DeNicola, and Donald Markowitz from Dirty Dancing)

Beverly Hills Cop III

Director: John Landis

Cast: Eddie Murphy, Judge Reinhold, Hector Elizondo, Timothy Carhart, Stephen McHattie 

Released: May 25, 1994

Cue the synthesizers and other '80s electronic instruments because it's time to head to Beverly Hills with Axel Foley as I review the Beverly Hills Cop trilogy (soon to have a fourth!). I don't think any of these movies are particularly good, but they are fun to watch (well, the first two anyway!) and you can tell when Eddie Murphy improvises during a scene and those are some of the funniest scenes in the films. 

When watching the first movie, there were only five actors I was familiar with:

1. Eddie Murphy, obviously.

2. Judge Reinhold - I probably couldn't tell you anything he's been in unless I looked up his filmography, but I'm definitely familiar with his name. I do remember he was in The Sant Clause movies.

3. Bronson Pinchot - It's Balki from Perfect Strangers! 

4. Paul Reiser - he looks younger than his My Two Dads character, much younger than his Mad About You character, and way younger than his Stranger Things character! 

5. Jonathan Banks  - yes, Mike Ehrmantraut (from Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul for those who may not know) is in this! Actually, I didn't recognize him at all and it was only when I was watching the credits that I realized he was in this.

Axel Foley (a very young (and skinny!) Eddie Murphy) is a cop who lives in Detroit. This little detail surprised me, as I assumed he lived in California since the movie is called Beverly Hills Cop. The movie opens with Axel going undercover in a sting operation and it ends up in a high speed car chase (set to The Pointer Sisters' "Neutron Dance"; what is a Neutron dance anyway?). He does this without any authorization and his boss, Inspector Todd, is livid. Before he gets chewed out by him, Axel's fellow cop, Jeffrey (played by a very young Paul Reiser) tries to warn him that he's about to get it and right before Inspector Todd comes into the locker room to yell at Axel, Jeffrey turns around and pretend to be interested in the lockers. At one point, he (stupidly) intervenes in the conversation and Todd snaps at him that this is none of his business. He turns back to the lockers and exclaims, "This is not my locker!" This will come back in the second movie which was a nice nod to this scene. 

Inspector Todd tells Axel that if he ever does anything like that again, he will be fired. 

When Axel returns home, he notices the door to his apartment is slightly ajar. If that happened to me, I would be freaked out! However, being a cop, Axel has a gun, so he takes it out and scopes out his apartment. Luckily, he doesn't have anything to worry about because it's just an old friend of his named Mikey (which I didn't get his name until way later so maybe I missed it when we first meet him) who's sitting in his kitchen, eating. Actually, he does have to worry about Mikey wasting his electrical bill because he has the refrigerator door propped open. I'm guessing the A/C must be broken and he's doing that to keep cool, but, dude,' c'mon! Everyone knows you don't leave the fridge door open longer than is necessary. 

We quickly find out that Mikey was in jail for breaking and entering, but he was released a year early and has already been out for six months where he's spent some time in California (Beverly Hill, I presume!). They haven't seen each other in two years. Mikey shows Axel a stack of "untraceable bearer bonds worth 10,000 Deutschmarks." Axel asks if he stole them, then quickly rescinds his questions, saying he doesn't even want to know. I have no idea how much that is worth in US dollars, but considering that Germany uses the Euro now I don't think this will be a great future investment! In fact, this will be a fatal investment for Mikey. I'm sorry, but this guy seems like a real dumbass. 

But before Mikey meets his demise, at least he will have a fun night out with Axel as they go out to drink beer and shoot some pool. We get some more exposition as Mikey tells Axel he was in Beverly Hills (aha! I was right!) as a security guard. He was hired by a mutual friend of theirs, a woman named Jenny Summers who's the manager of a super fancy art gallery. Later, we will find out that Jenny's boss hired him as a favor for her. I guess Jenny didn't tell her boss that he did time for stealing because who the hell would hire this guy? 

They're both drunk when they return to Axel's apartment and as he's trying to unlock his door, two guys ambush them from both sides, knocking Axel out. They roughhouse Mikey and slam him against the wall and grab the bag he's carrying with the bonds in it (I love how he's just conveniently carrying them around). Mikey clearly knows who they are and tells them he was going to bring them back (yeah, right!); that he only took a couple stacks and didn't think they would miss them. Oh, they missed them, alright! They shoot him in the head right in the middle of the hallway. One of the guys who kills him is played by Jonathan Banks, and like I mentioned, the first time I saw this, it didn't even register with me that was him, but when I watched it again to take notes and knew this time he was in it, I definitely saw him. He's younger (but still old, if that makes sense) and has a lot more hair, but you can tell by the eyes and the voice. 

Somebody must have called the police because the next thing you know they're at the apartment and Axel is outside talking to Inspector Todd. He's really lucky that they just didn't kill him too, but then I guess we wouldn't have a movie. Or it would have been a very different movie! Todd warns Axel not to get involved in this case so Axel asks if he can take some vacation time which he's granted, but Todd tells him if he finds out he's butting into the case, "it will be the longest vacation [he] ever heard of." 

Now we see palm trees so we know Axel is in Beverly Hills. You would think that since he lives in Detroit, he would fly out to California, right? Wrong! He drives all the way out there in his crappy car, a Chevy Nova. It's 2,300 miles from Detroit to Beverly Hills. Who would drive that distance when you can fly out there in about five hours? (Still a long flight, but much better than driving!) 

After he obtains a hotel room he clearly can't afford, he goes to the art gallery where Jenny works. Before he's reunited with her, he meets Serge (Bronson Pinchot) who works at the gallery. He has some Eastern European accent (perhaps he hails from the Greek isle of Mypos?) and calls Axel "Ack-swell". Serge is only in two scenes, but he leaves a memorable impression. He is hilarious; when he sees a fellow co-worker with too many buttons on his shirt left open, he tells him to button it up because it's not sexy (and I loved when Axel agrees with him); when he tells Axel how much a piece of art work went for, Axel says, "Get the f*** out of here!" (because it's a very high price for a very odd piece!), he replies, "No, I cannot!" which cracked me up. He also offers Axel a cup of espresso with "a twist of lemon", but Axel politely declines. 

Axel and Jenny (as we'll learn in a later scene) know each other because they grew up in the same neighborhood. I guess Mikey was also part of this friend group too? IDK. Axel has to break the news to her that Mikey is dead and this is when we find out that her boss, Victor Maitland (Steven Berkoff), who is one of the top art dealers in the U.S., hired him as a favor to her and Mikey worked at the gallery warehouse. 

Axel shows up at Maitland's office building posed as a delivery man with flowers and tells the receptionist that "it's imperative" that Mr. Maitland get the flowers (why? they're just flowers!) and goes to deliver them himself even though she tells him that all deliveries are left on the desk. He barges into the office and gets to the point when he tells him he needs to ask him some questions about Michael Tandino and explains that he was in Detroit and someone killed him. Maitland's exclamation of "Oh my God! That's terrible!" isn't convincing at all. He confirms that Mikey did work for him and when Axel still probes for information, he tells him that the authorities in Detroit should look into this and that he needs to get back to work. This must be the cue for his six guards to grab him and throw him out the window. A bit excessive, especially with people in the lobby witnessing all of this. One guard leading him out the front door would have sufficed. 

The cops come to take him to the police department as he's been charged with having a weapon (they find a gun on him) and disturbing the peace. He's pretty outraged about the latter since he was thrown out a window! After spending some time in a cell (with a pay phone which he makes a joke about wanting to order a pizza; yes the pay phone is in the actual cell), they let him out. On the outside, the Beverly Hills Police Department is a very ornate building and on the inside, it's very high-tech (especially for 1984!). 

He's introduced to sergeants John Taggart (John Ashton) and Billy Rosewood (Judge Reinhold) who question him why he didn't identify himself as a police officer when he was arrested and Axel replies he was just minding his own business, but Taggart informs him that six witnesses saw him come in and tear up the place, then jump out the window. Let me guess: those six "witnesses" were the six security/body guards. Taggart and Axel don't get off on the right foot as the Beverly Hills cop tells Axel he's more likely to believe an established businessman than some "foul mouthed jerk from out of town." Axel answers withs a foul-mouthed response. They get into a squabble and Taggart punches him in the gut. From his office, Taggart's and Rosewood's boss, Lieutenant Bogomil (Ronny Cox,) sees this and after having a word with Taggart, he (Taggart) apologizes to Axel. Bogomil introduces himself to Axel and asks him if he would like to press charges against Taggart, but he says where he comes from, police officers don't do that to other police officers. Bogomil asks why he didn't inform them why he was in town and he tells them he's on vacation. When asked why he was in Maitland's office, Axel says he had to use the bathroom and thought that would be a good place. I don't know, that sounds kind of like a weak excuse. If you're walking down a street, are you going to go into an office building to use the bathroom? I mean, maybe, but I'd feel like you're more likely to use either a public bathroom or one at a restaurant or a fast food place. Bogomil asks if he always takes his gun on vacation and Axel replies that he's never been on vacation before, but in Detroit "cops are required to carry a firearm at all times." Bogomil informs him he had just been talking on the phone with Inspector Todd and that he's supposed to give him the message that if he's investigating the Tandino murder, then he shouldn't bother coming back to Detroit. Axel stills insists he's only in Beverly Hills on vacation. 

This is totally random and has nothing to do with the movie, but the name "Bogomil" reminded me of something and it finally dawned on me that it sounds a lot like Gargamel, you know, as in the villain from The Smurfs. 

Jenny pays for Axel's bail and takes him back to his hotel. During the drive, Axel notices the cops are following them and they park on the opposite side of the street of the hotel. In his room, Axel orders room service (the bay shrimp salad sandwich and the cold poached salmon in dill sauce) and instructs them to take it to the car with Taggart and Rosewood. This is all to distract them as Axel sneaks in behind their car and puts a couple of bananas in their tail pipe so the car stalls when they try to follow Axel and Jenny who drive to Maitland's warehouse where Axel finds a crate full of coffee grounds. They have to hide from some guys coming in with a box, but from where he's hiding, he's able to see that it's full of the bearer bonds that Mikey had. They follow them to what Jenny tells Axel is a "bonded warehouse", where they "hold foreign shipments until they clear customs." Axel tells a reluctant Jenny to take the car (it's her car they took, btw) and go home because he wants to check out the place. I know he doesn't want Jenny to be in harm's way if things go bad, but my first thought was how is he going to get back to his hotel? 

He walks inside, not trying to be sneaky, and when a security officer spots him, Axel smiles at him and asks how he's doing, then asks the man if he can get his supervisor and flashes his badge. The guy gets the supervisor and Axel introduces himself as "Inspector Rafferty, United States Custom Service" and asks him if all this stuff has passed through customs and the guy tells him this is "the bonded area." Axel wants him to answer a question for him: "How can a black man, dressed like me (he's wearing jeans, t-shirt, and unzipped hoodie), just march into your warehouse, walk into the bonded area and start poking around without anyone asking me any questions whatsoever?" It cracked me up when the supervisor replies "I don't know" and he says that's the answer he was looking for. He takes their ID badges from them and tells them somebody's gonna lose their job over this. He informs them he does "security checks all over the nation" and this one has the worst security in the nation right behind Cleveland. I'm sure back in 1984, the people of Cleveland watching this in the theaters had a big chuckle over this line. He tells them they're going to check the background of each and every crate in the section, starting with the one he's already picked out that he knows belongs to Maitland.  

It's amazing how they just go along with this and don't even ask to see his credentials, but I guess things were different back in the '80s. Or maybe it's just for the convenience of the plot and people really weren't that dumb back then. 

Meanwhile, Bogomil is furious about the banana incident and orders that Taggart and Rosewood wait for Axel to return to the hotel. We get a funny scene of them in the car where Rosewood shares the information from the magazine article he's reading: "By the time the average American is 50, he's got five pounds of undigested red meat in his bowels." Taggart asks him why he thinks he would want to hear this (my thoughts exactly!) and Rosewood replies, "You eat a lot of red meat." That "fact" (if indeed it is true; I was too scared to fact check it on the Internet for fear of what I might find!) is so gross! Kinda makes me glad I don't eat much red meat (I may have 2-3 steaks a year, if that!).

After he gets the info he needs, Axel returns to the hotel and sees the cop in their car and hops in the backseat (guess they don't keep their doors locked!). They're still a bit salty with Axel (especially Taggart) because his banana stunt docked them two days' pay. That sucks for them since it really wasn't their fault. Axel apologizes and says they should all be working together since they're cops and suggests they "all go get something to drink and make up and be friends" 

They end up at a strip club which will be a staple of the Beverly Hills Cop franchise. Axel shows them the coffee grounds, but they don't know what they mean. That's quickly forgotten when Axel looks over and sees two shady guys enter, both wearing long black leather coats. One of them stays by the bar and the other walks towards the back, leaning against the wall. Axel points out the guy near the wall to Taggart and asks him if he thinks it's odd he's wearing a coat in June. He points out the other guy and tells him something's about to go down and asks him to cover the guy against the wall. He walks towards the guy at the bar and shouts "Phillip!" and pretends to know him as he loudly yells and makes a racket. The guy tells him to get out of his way and stops the music (which, thank God cuz that "Nasty Girl" song was awful!), then takes out his gun and the other guy does the same. Axel has his hands up but is still acting like he knows the guy. The guy comes closer to him and Axel grabs his gun and whacks him with it; meanwhile Taggart takes out his gun and points it at the other guy. They arrest the two guys and everyone claps as Taggart apologizes for the disturbance. I guess these two guys were planning on robbing the place. When I first watched this, I thought these guys were connected to Maitland, but nope, just two random guys whose plot was foiled. 

When they return to the police department, Bogomil is livid and wants to know what they were doing at a strip club out of their jurisdiction while they were on duty. Axel cuts in to tell him they were there because the other two were following him and that's where he went. They waited outside while he was inside and the only reason they went inside was because "they saw two suspicious-looking gentlemen with bulges in their jackets going into the place." He had no idea what was going on, but Taggart and Rosewood "were able too stop them." It's a very good, believable story, but when Bogomil asks the two sergeants if that's what really happened, Taggart, who apparently cannot lie, tells him no and tells him the true story and that it was Foley who saw the suspects and that he's the one who deserves credit for the arrests. Bogomil tells Taggart and Rosewood they're off the case and has two other cops keep an eye on Foley. 

The next morning, Axel orders coffee and doughnuts from room service to be delivered to the new set of cops and he sneaks away in his car, but they're on to him and follow him to Victor Maitland's house. During this scene, you can see a DeLorean parked on the curb. Besides being useful for a time machine, the DeLorean has to be one of the most impractical cars ever made. You can only parallel park because of those doors and who wants to parallel park? But the sight of it made me laugh because of course some rich dude (because you know it's a guy) in Beverly Hills is going to own a DeLorean in the '80s. While they're busy chatting, they see a car leave the house and Axel follows it and they follow Axel, but he's able to lose them. 

 

Axel follows him to a fancy, members-only restaurant and when he goes in, he acts very flamboyant and tells the maitre d' he's looking for Victor Maitland and the man replies if he tells him the message, he can relay it to Mr. Maitland. Axel gives him his message: "Tell Victor that Ramon, the fella he met about a week ago, went to the clinic today, and I found out that I have herpes simplex ten. And I think Victor should go check himself out with his physician to make sure everything is fine before things start falling off." Not surprisingly, the maitre d' tells Axel he better tell Victor himself. Yeah, I don't blame him, that's not the kind of information you want to be delivering as the middleman, but I would be a little suspicious if I were the restaurant employee because I'd be thinking, this is not the time or place to be relaying this news. 

Victor is seated with Zach (that's young Mike Ehrmantraut...lol, now I'm picturing him saying "Axel" in the same way he says "Walter"....you know what I mean if you've seen Breaking Bad!) and the henchman gets up and tells Axel to get out out and they start slapping each other, then Axel grabs him and throws him into the nearby buffet table that's full of fruit and sliced strawberries, lemons, kiwis, bananas, and watermelon go flying everywhere. If I were one of the prep cooks who had spent all morning cutting all that fruit, I would be pissed! The other diners around them are just staring at them, but besides that, there's really no reaction. 

Axel tells Victor that he knows he's into shady stuff and is pretty certain that he had Mikey killed. Vitor replies that he has no idea who he's dealing with and tells him to go back to Detroit. At that point, the police come to take Axel away, so apparently somebody must have called them. 

Back at the police headquarters, Bogomil asks Axel why he keeps harassing Maitland and he tells him about Mikey and his suspicions of Maitland having him killed and adds, "I can't prove that right now, but when I do, you'll be the first to know." He also tells him about the bearer bonds and Bogomil doesn't think that proves anything. Axel says that Maitland is "not an investor, he's a smuggler" and that the crate that he saw didn't pass through Customs, but rather "Maitland is paying someone so his guys can get his shipments out of Customs before they get inspected" and when his guys get their hands on it, "they take the drugs or the bonds out of the crate and send it back before Customs even knows what's going on." When asked, Axel confirms he witnessed all that, except he didn't see any drugs, but he did see coffee grounds which drugs are sometimes packed in because the scent throws off the dogs. By-the-books Bogomil says they don't have a search warrant to inspect the warehouse and tells Taggart to start checking this out. Axel points out that if they start snooping around, Maitland will just close down and move his shipments somewhere else. 

However, Police Chief Hubbard want Axel to be escorted out of city limits because he's had enough of his shenanigans and Rosewood is ordered to drive him out of Beverly Hills. In the car, Axel tells him that Maitland is expecting another shipment in today and wants Billy to drive him to the art gallery so she can let them in the warehouse. Rosewood asks how can he be sure if the shipment will contain drugs and Axel replies that he's "got a hunch". It doesn't take much for him to convince Billy to take the detour. 

At the gallery, we get another humorous scene with Serge when Axel asks him to get Rosewood an espresso. He asks him if he wants a lemon twist and Billy replies sure, if it's no bother, and Serge replies, "No, don't be stupid." Jenny tells Axel that Maitland had come by earlier that day to ask about Axel and wanted to know where Foley was staying because he had "some helpful information" but she claimed she didn't know. She want go go to the warehouse with them, but Axel says it's too dangerous and adds that he doesn't have time to argue. Jenny replies, "Let me get my keys and we'll argue on the way" which is a line that made me laugh.

They drive to the warehouse and Axel tells Billy to stay in the car and observe. He can't go in because he's a cop and if he goes in "without probable cause, they'll call it an illegal search." He asks Jenny if there's any chance she can give him the key so he can go in by himself, but she says "no chance" and goes in with him. They check out the crate and he finds one from overseas that hasn't passed through Customs yet and opens it with a crowbar. Inside are coffee grounds and under those are plastic bags of a white powder substance which I'm sure isn't sugar! Axel is sure too when he takes his pinkie to taste it. Uh...pretty sure cops aren't allowed to do that! At that moment, two guys show up and one points a gun at Axel's head. In the car, Rosewood sees Maitland, Zach, and some other goons show up and go inside. Maitland tells his men to take Jenny to the car. Everyone but the first two men who were already there get in the car and drive off. Rosewood goes in and hears Axel coughing as he's being hit in the stomach by one of the men. He shoots at one guy and Axel is able to get free and take a swing at the other guy. They are able to get out and run to the car where Rosewood gets on the radio and tells dispatch to have Taggart check out the warehouse and act on whatever he finds. Taggart has other plans and tells the two cops who were assigned to follow Axel the second time to check out the warehouse and he drives to Maitland's house (because he knows that's where Axel and Billy are headed) and when he arrives there, he sees the two cops breaking into the back gate. After they explain to them Jenny has been kidnapped and she's in the house (I'm not really sure how they knew Maitland took her to his house; I guess it was just a lucky guess or I missed something), Taggart tells them they need a search warrant and they can get it in twenty minutes. Axel replies they may not have that much time and he's going in, regardless, and Rosewood says he's going in too. Taggart tells Billy that if he's lucky, the worst thing that will happen to him is that he'll just get fired. He decides that he's going in too and goes to get his guns from the trunk. Inside, two security guards see that there are people in the backyard with guns and they alert other men who work for Maitland and they come out with guns to check what's going on. 

Axel sneaks up the stairs that leads to the back of the house while Taggart and Rosewood go around a large stone wall. They try to climb it, but it's too high. There's a hilarious moment where Taggart gets on Rosewood's shoulders after Billy gives him a boost, but Billy can't keep his balance and he's stumbling and they fall. Eventually, they are able to get over. You can tell it's a different wall, because from their side of the fence, it's a solid white wall, but when you're seeing them from Axel's point of view, it's not solid and there are decorative slabs. 

There's lot of gun firing. A few bad guys are shot, but mostly the decorative gardening vases and statues are getting the brunt of it. This is the most gaudy pool area I've ever seen. There's huge statues everywhere. At one point, Rosewood stands up with his badge and yells, "Police! You're all under arrest!" but they don't care and continue to shoot at him so he has to dive for cover. They cover Axel as he makes his way into the house. There's no way the interior of this house is the same one they use for the outside. For a Beverly Hills mansion of an art collector, the rooms just feel small and uninspiring. He kills Zach after he's being fired at, then Maitland shows up and starts shooting at Axel. 

Meanwhile, Bogomil finds out that they're at Maitland's residence and he and many other cops show up a few minutes later. 

Back in the house, Maitland has grabbed Jenny with a gun to her head, but then Bogomil pops in and yells "Freeze!" and Jenny elbows a surprised Maitland and is able to get away and both Axel and Bogomil shoot him dead. This time, when Billy yells, "Police! You're all under arrest!", they put their weapons down and their hands up because many police officers are swarming the area. Rosewood's smug reaction is pretty funny.

Police Chief Hubbard shows up and wants to know what's going on, excuse me, he wants to know "what the hell's going on?" He spots Axel and demand to know why he isn't in custody. Bogomil tells him he can explain everything and makes up a story that Jenny "accidentally discovered large quantities of a substance she suspected was cocaine in the art gallery's warehouse" and she told Axel who was "cooperating at the time in a joint Beverly Hills-Detroit investigation of narcotics trafficking." He and Rosewood responded to her report and "discovered approximately 80 kilos of cocaine". Rosewood called for backup and he dispatched their officers to this location which Taggart was first to arrive and "having probable cause to believe a felony was in progress" they "proceeded to enter the grounds" and they shot several suspects to defend themselves. Hubbard wants to hear from Taggart if he can confirm that story since it was established earlier that he has a penchant for telling the truth, but Taggart says that's what happened. 

After Hubbard leaves, Axel asks Bogomil if he could call Inspector Todd and straighten things out for him and he tells him he'll do that in the morning. I really thought he was going to offer Axel a job and that's how he became a Beverly Hills cop, hence the title! Axel checks out of his hotel room and he's lucky that the BHPD paid for it! 

That's the end of the first movie, now on to Beverly Hills Cop II which follows a similar formula to the first movie, but is a bit more convoluted. The movie is directed by Tony Scott so there are more actions scenes with sh*t blowing up and you can tell they had a bit more money for production. 

It's two years later and Axel is still living in Detroit as a cop and is working undercover on an assignment with fake credit cards. We learn that he's kept in touch with Bogomil, Taggart, and Rosewood; he even has to cancel a fishing trip he had planned with Bogomil. Okay, I can buy that maybe he sends Christmas cards or talks to them on the phone every few months, but visits? Yeah, that seems a bit much. He even seems to be very friendly with Bogomil's adult daughter, Jan, who we meet in this movie. They obviously just added her as a character they needed because it was never mentioned before that he had a daughter. 

In the first movie, Axel was brought to Beverly Hills because of the murder of a friend; this time he comes to Beverly Hills because Bogomil was shot and Axel knew he had been working on a case and thinks it may have to do with him being shot. 

Because of the way a case was handled, Lutz, the new police chief, has suspended Bogomil; and Taggart and Rosewood have been demoted to traffic duty. At one point, he calls Rosewood "Roseweed" which made me giggle. On his way home, Bogomil is followed by a tall, attractive woman with dark hair and sunglasses, but she must have gotten in front of him because he sees her parked on the curb in a residential area (I'm assuming his). Her hood is open as though she has car trouble and he pulls over to offer help. As he's checking out the engine, another car pulls up and she hands him a piece of paper with "B" written on it and asks him what he thinks of it and the guy driving by shoots at him. He grabs at her and pulls off the wig she's wearing to reveal she's a blonde and she shoots him in the chest. I gasped, thinking for sure he was dead, but he actually makes it out okay by the end of the movie, so he must have been wearing a bullet proof vest. 

The tall blonde woman that shot him is the same tall blonde woman we saw rob a fancy jewelry store at the beginning of the movie. Well she didn't do any of the stealing; the masked men who were with her did all that while she just kept shouting how much time they had until the police arrived ("Two minutes! One thirty!"). On her way out, she left a pink carnation and a card with the letter "A" on the back of the manager. The man is alive, but he was ordered to "eat the floor". It cracked me up seeing this nicely dressed, polished woman use such boorish language. Yes, I realize she's involved in a heist, but its not like she's really doing any of the dirty work! The "A" stands for the name of the jewelry store (and presumably the last name of the owner), Adriano. With the "B" card found on Bogomil, the two crimes are connected and are quickly dubbed the Alphabet Crimes. It was really lucky that Bogomil wasn't named, like, Zogomil in the first movie or else they'd have to think of something else! 

Axel finds out about the shooting of Bogomil on TV. Why would this be on the news in Detroit? Seems like that would be more local news, not national news. But I guess they need to have him find out, although I'm sure Taggart or Rosewood or Jan would have called him to tell him. Yeah, that would make way more sense. This is when we find out that he's "going to be okay" and Rosewood tells him about "the Alphabet Bandit" and that he and Taggart aren't on the case. 

Before Axel leaves for Beverly Hills, he asks Jeffrey (that's Paul Reiser's character, remember) to have him tell Inspector Todd (that's his boss, remember) that he's pursing his credit card bust. When he arrives in the ritzy town, we're shown a bunch of Beverly Hills cliches like expensive cars and Rodeo Drive. The one that stuck out to me in particular was an attractive woman walking her little dog down the sidewalk. Not only is she wearing heels (ridiculous! She must only be walking her dog down to the end of the street and back), but she's wearing a leotard and tights and it looks like she has the world's worst wedgie (try saying that three times fast!). I know this because they show a close up of her ass...I guess we're supposed to think it's sexy? Yeah, it's not. Serge would not think it's sexy, heh! (And no, Serge is not in this movie because Pinchot was filming Perfect Strangers.) 

Axel sees a mansion under construction and pulls up to it. Once again, he manages to convince a group of people that he's someone he's not. He quickly learns the name of the couple who live there and that they are away in Hawaii until the end of the week. He tells them he's in charge now and that the couple have changed their plans. According to him, there's "not supposed to be any right angles" and tells everyone to stop. He needs to talk to some people and tells them to go home and take the week off. He ends his little speech with "It's Miller time!" which made me laugh. But once again, I don't know if people in the '80s were really this stupid and gullible or this is just exaggerated for the plot of the movie. Maybe a little bit of both. Either way, he found a nice, free place to stay. 

He goes to the police station where he wants Rosewood and Taggart to show him the letters left from the Alphabet Bandit. Lutz wants to know who he is and in a Caribbean accent, Axel tells him his name is Johnny Wishbone and he's a psychic from St. Croix who's been sent here to help the Beverly Hills police with a crime they're having trouble with. I laughed when he said that Lutz and Biddle (the guy who's always following Lutz around) sounds like Kibble and Bits. It's funny because it's true! That had to be an improvised Eddie Murphy line. In fact, the whole scene felt like it was improvised!

Even though Rosewood and Taggart are supposed to be only doing traffic duty, Axel convinces them to help him find who shot Bogoil. He reminds them he was there for him a couple years ago and they agree as long as they can be covert and keep a low profile. (Ha! Good luck with that!) 

While he was at the station, Axel had taken a shell casing from one of the bullets that hit Bogomil and Taggart thinks they should go to the Beverly Hills Shooting Club and ask the owner, Russ Fielding, about it.

When they get to the exclusive, members-only club, we get another ridiculous scene where Axel takes a paper sack (filled with Rosewood's vitamins) and walks into the swanky reception area. He stops a waiter holding a bottle of champagne and while he's asking what year it is (the champagne, not the actual year!), he dips his hand in the ice and covers his face with water. The waiter answer his question but doesn't question what he's doing. Axel starts breathing heavily and walks carefully towards the desk where the receptionist is sitting. He tells her he's from "Metalux Explosive Research Company" and asks for Russell Fielding because he "ordered these plutonium-nitrate multi-explosive sound-seeking projectiles. The receptionist looks at her records and tells him she doesn't see anything about that and she can straighten this out, but before she can reach for the phone, he stops her and suggests she doesn't "use the phone, sneeze, cough, or anything." He slowly gets up to leave, telling her that she can work it out, but she tells him she can just take it to Mr. Fielding's office and tells him where it is. Uh, wouldn't you be calling the bomb squad if you really thought there were explosives in that bag? I don't know how believable that scene was, but it was amusing. 

Once he's out of her sight, he throws the bag away. I'm sure Rosewood will be thrilled about that. (He'll think that Axel sold them.) He goes into the shooting range room where he finds Russ and asks him about the bullet and he identifies it. The tall blonde woman who we know shot Bogomil is there and comes over and introduces herself as the assistant manager, Karla Fry (Brigitte Nielsen). In a private conversation, Russ tells Karla about the casing Axel brought to show him that was from there and that he made it and others just like it for Charles Cain, the manager of the Shooting Club. Karla goes into an office and tells this information to a man with a German accent. 

  

I need to do a quick fashion corner here and talk about Karla's earrings. They are the most '80s earrings I've ever seen. There are these huge, silver geometric-shaped earrings that cover almost the bottom third of her ear. They look very uncomfortable, not to mention ugly as hell. I posted a picture so you can see what I'm talking about.

While Axel is preoccupied with the shooting range (he gave a fake name to Russ and Karla), we are given some exposition. Charles Cain (played by Dean Stockwell; Al from Quantum Leap!) is called into the office of the German man to go over plans "C" and "D" because they "have promised to deliver Thomopolis $10 million Friday at 6." He wants to avoid the same mistakes they made on the Adriano job. The man wasn't happy that Cain supplied the men on that job with guns from his club, but Cain insisted nobody would be able to trade them and that nobody knows that he (the German) wrote the notes or planned all this. He questions why there is a man in the club asking questions and believes him to be a cop, because who else would be asking questions like those? He shows Cain Axel on the security footage and tells him he's going to kill him. Also, if you, like me, have no idea what the hell they're talking about, don't worry about; it really doesn't matter. This movie gets pretty convoluted and it's best not to ponder everything. 

Cain introduces himself to Axel and asks him if he would like a guest membership. Axel agrees and gives him the address where he can send it to after Cain asks for it. Uh, wouldn't you just fill it out there at the club? I get why he asked for it; after this scene we see Cain give the address to two hitmen in a car. I'm surprised Axel just gave out the address.

I have to laugh because in this scene Dean Stockwell has a cigar he occasionally smokes and he does this exact same thing in pretty much every episode of Quantum Leap. Maybe, like, it was in his contract he had to be smoking a cigar in all his projects. 

Back in the car where Rosewood and Taggart are waiting, Axel tells them a six-foot blonde woman was working in the club and Rosewood replies that a woman of the same description was spotted at the Adriano robbery. Taggart points out there are six foot blondes everywhere in the area. They decide to meet at Axel's "place" in an hour. 

Before he heads back, Axel makes a stop at Bogomil's house where he looks through his office and finds a newspaper clipping about oil price dropping and an ad for a club called 385 North. There's also a photograph of the German man with the name "Maxwell Dent" written in large red markers so the audience can see it. Jan is there too and Axel asks if she can use her connections of working at an insurance company to find out about this Maxwell Dent. 

 

When Taggart and Rosewood arrive at the address of the mansion Axel gave them and find him lounging in the pool, Taggart accuses him of stealing the house, but Axel insists it's his uncle's house. Funny, he's never mentioned having an uncle living in Beverly Hills before! That's what I would have pointed out! Taggart gets angry at him and tells him he needs to get out of the house. Hilariously, he ends up slipping on the concrete (which Axel had warned them was slippery) and falls into the pool. He ends up changing into a super preppy outfit that he finds upstairs: plaid pants white polo, yellow sweater vest, and light blue blazer. (I guess the man who lives in that house is the same size as Taggart!) He looks like he's about to go golfing. He's pretty pleased with himself and thinks he looks "sharp". 

They head out to 385 North, which happens to be a members-only strip club. Axel gets them in by telling the host that Taggart is former President Gerald Ford and he's his representative and Rosewood is his bodyguard. The host says he doesn't look like Ford and Axel asks him if he's ever seen him without his make-up. He convinces the guy it really is the ex-POTUS and adds that he should be proud to have him there and the host says it is a pleasure to have him there. 

Okay, so I looked up Ford's date of birth to see how old he would have been in '87 and the make-up line makes a lot of sense now. He was a lot older than I would have thought; in' 87 he turned 74! I looked up John Ashton's age and he turned 39 in '87, so I'm assuming Taggart is supposed to be the same age or around it. Personally, I think Taggart looks like Dr. Phil (but no accent!), but obviously, nobody knew who he was back then. 

Axel asks the bartender about a blond man named Nik Thomopolis who is seen schmoozing with a few people and finds out he owns the place. He asks his cop friends about him and Taggart tells him he's "the biggest arms dealer on the West Coast." Sidenote: Thompolis is played by Paul Guilfoyle who also played the bad guy in another movie from 1987, Three Men and a Baby. I guess he got sick of playing bad guys that he wanted to play someone who caught the bad guys in CSI:! 

Word must have gotten around that ex-President Ford was at the club because when they get up to leave, everyone else stands up and applauds. 

The two hitmen must have followed them to the club because as the three cops walk to their car, the men pull up to the curb and one of them takes out a gun and starts shooting. The cops dive for cover and start shooting back. The car ends up crashing into a pole and turns over, but the two guys manage to get away (not sure how it escalated so quickly!).

A furious Police Chief Hubbard shows up at the scene. He tells Axel that he checked with immigration and that "they never heard of a Johnny Wishbone." Axel comes clean (sort of) and shows him his badge and tells him he's a cop from Detroit and that he's in Beverly Hills because he's "attached to a multi-jurisdictional federal task force on organized crime and [his] code name is Wishbone." Hubbard just snaps back that he's the Chief of Police and he need to know about any federal task force. Axel tells him he can call his boss back in Detroit between the hours of 9 and 10, central time, and he'll tell him everything he needs to know. The fact that he gave only a one hour window to call his boss should have sent up red flags for Hubbard, but he never questions it. 

This will lead to a hilarious scene back in Detroit the next morning, where Jeffrey, having talked with Axel the night before, calls up Inspector Todd early in the morning pretending to be someone with the "FBI Enforcement Bulletin" (he disguises his voice) and he wants to interview him for some piece he's working on and asks if he can meet him at a diner for breakfast at nine o'clock. I'm surprised Todd said yes; if that had been me, I would have been super annoyed that a) somebody was calling me that early (I wouldn't have even answered the phone!), and b) why are they trying to set up an appointment without giving me that much notice? As soon as Todd leaves for his faux appointment (I hope for Jeffrey's sake, he gave him the address of a diner that's far away!), Jeffrey goes inside Todd's office (apparently he doesn't lock it when he's gone!) and wills the phone to ring. It does, eventually, in a few minutes, but what if Hubbard had waited until the end of the hour to call? By then, Todd would have been back and Axel's plan wouldn't have worked. As it is, by the time Hubbard does call, Todd has come back to the station, clearly pissed that he's been duped (I guess the diner wasn't that far away) and enters his office just as Jeffrey's hanging up the phone after confirming Axel's story with Hubbard. He had been hiding behind Todd's desk and when the Inspector demands to know what he's doing there, he exclaims "This is not my office!" which is a nice callback to the first movie with his "This is not my locker!" line. Paul Reiser was not in the third movie (I assume he was busy with Mad About You or maybe he saw the script and bailed, heh), but he's in the trailer for the new movie coming to Netflix and I hope they give him a similar line. 

Meanwhile back to Beverly Hills and the night before where Axel gets a match off a set of fingerprints he found on a matchbook that was in the car of the two goons who tried to off him. They get a match with Charles Cain and Axel recognizes him as the manager of the Shooting Club. He wants to go there and check it out even though it's 11 at night and closed. He manages to get them in with some MacGyver type maneuver using chewing gum, the foil from the gum, and a pocket knife. I'm not really sure what he did, but it certainly wouldn't work in real life! In Cain's office, they find map coordinates in his locked desk which he broke into. 

They find out the coordinates correlates with the City Deposit which is a federal Reserve Bank where banks take their money. Axel bets that's the next target. He's right and the Alphabet Bandit crosses off "C" and "D" in one fell swoop (does that really count as both, though? Seems like cheating to me, just saying). 

While it's being robbed the next day, the three cops drive there (quite recklessly), but come across construction that blocks their way. Axel and Rosewood are close enough to the bank that they can sound the alarm by shooting it and the bad guys escape and they follow them in a cement truck (yeah, it's just as ridiculous as it sounds) and we get a hilarious scene where Rosewood sideswipes a police car and tells Axel it's okay because he knows the guy and "he's a jerk!" Although, the next moment might have made me laugh more: we see a guy in his fancy car back out of his driveway, but when he sees the armored truck the bad guys are driving comes barreling down his street, he quickly retreats back to his driveway and when he thinks the coast is clear, he backs out again only to be sideswiped by the cement truck. I don't know, that just made me laugh...the guy is being so cautious, but his car ends up getting totaled anyway. 

They eventually spot the armored truck which is empty. Axel finds a $50 bill in the front seat and sees tracks in the dirt and realizes there was a pick-up vehicle. They follow the tracks and it leads them to the Playboy Mansion, of all places. The only really humorous moment during this whole scene is when they drive up in the cement truck and the valet is played by a very young Chris Rock. This would be three years before he was even on SNL! When he sees the cement truck, he says to Axel, "I get $10 for cars, I get $20 for limos. What the hell is this?" Axel gives him the fifty and tells him to put it next to a limo. 

There's a pool party (of course there is) and they somehow manage to make their way in by telling the receptionist (lol was there really a receptionist at the Playboy Mansion?) that they are there to clean the pool which doesn't make any sense since people are already using the pool, so you think they would have it cleaned before the party, but whatever. They just wanted an excuse to film at the Playboy Mansion. Out back, they see Karla, Maxwell Dent, and Thomopolis. Oh, and Hugh Hefner makes a cameo, because, of course he does. He still looks old even back in '87, but thats probably because he was 61. Axel tells Hugh that he wants to give him some information about some of his guests, such as that Thomopolis is "into guns and drugs" and "Max kills cops for a living." Hugh just tells them all to get out. He doesn't have time for this! 

So after that totally pointless scene (although the Chris Rock scene was pretty good, but I'm sure they could have found another small role for him), we find out that the bad guys are ready to set plan "E" in motion. 

Somehow, Axel had managed to pick pocket Dent's jacket and got a card with the information of his financial manager named Sidney Bernstein. He is played by Gilbert Gottfried and is doing his whole Gilbert Gottfried shtick. When the three cops enter his office while he's on the phone, he sarcastically says, "Oh, come on it. Don't let the fact that my door's closed dissuade you in any way from entering my office." Like Murphy, you can definitely tell when Gottfried is improvising! 

We next get this completely ridiculous (albeit hilarious) scene where Axel tells him they're with the Beverly Hills police and that he has 25 unpaid parking tickets and they're there to arrest him. Sidney tries to bribe them to drop the charges and Axel asks for $200 which Sidney is more than happy to part with. Now the most ludicrous moment: Axel asks Sidney if he can use his computer because he has "to wipe all evidence of this transaction out." He even asks him to leave to give him privacy and Sidney is all too eager to leave and let Axel use him computer. The hell? Shouldn't this be a huge red flag for Sidney? Surely he would realize that Axel was using his computer for other reasons because why would a police officer be using some random accountant's computer. It's so stupid, but whatever, the movie just wants you to know that Axel finds information that Dent and Kara are fleeing to Costa Rica soon.

He calls Jan to see what she found out about Dent and she tells him that he "was the cultural attache to the East Germany embassy in Honduras" and "he's got a racetrack, shooting club, drilling rig companies, and an oil company." He learns that Dent is in trouble because "he's let his insurance lapse on everything in the last six months." Tsk, tsk, tsk! Everything that is, except for the racetrack which he has a huge policy for. The racetrack is called Emperium Fields. Looks like we're knocking out the "F" too! 

The three cops reach the horse track, but by then it's too late and the money is gone. Cain has also been murdered (the audience sees Karla shoot him). Around this time, a press conference is being held by the police chief where he says he "is confident that [they] have identified the Alphabet bandit." He says it was Charles Cain because all the notes were signed "Carlos" and that's Spanish for Charles. Axel, Rosewood, and Taggart don't buy it. If the deceased Cain did it, then where is the money? A dead man can't make money disappear! Axel believes that Dent framed Cain for the first few crimes, then killed him on this one so he could get away because then the police would believe they had their man. (Spoiler alert: he's right.) He was buying guns from Thomopolis so he could sell them to his contacts in Central America. 

By this time, the movie is coming to an end and they are led to an oil field where they find trucks filled with explosives. The bad guys are there and there's a huge shootout. Axel kills Dent and Karla is about to kill Axel but Taggart comes to the rescue and shoots her. It was just a tiny bit misogynist when he utters, "Women" after he kills her. 

So the Alphabet Crimes have been solved and the mayor fires the Police Chief. We get one last funny scene with the the mayor calling Inspector Todd to thank him for lending Axel to their case and tells him his "extra tutelage" really paid off. Todd gets on the phone with Axel and exclaims, "Extra tutelage? What the f*** have you been telling them?" 

Just as Axel is leaving the mansion he's been staying in, the couple comes back. I bet that construction company is going to get chewed out for not working on their house at all while they were gone! 

While this movie has some funny moments, I like the first one better. This one has a few scenes that don't seem that necessary. There's a weird subplot with Billy where he's obsessed with guns, knifes and other weapons. Axel and Taggart keep telling him, "We need to talk." This really doesn't fit with his character from the first movie. That being said, the second movie is much better than the atrocious Beverly Hills Cop 3. 

I can't think of one scene in the third movie where Eddie Murphy improvises his lines as I don't think he ever does! He plays Axel way more seriously and it feels like he's trying to be a dramatic actor in a comedy! (And the funny scenes aren't even that funny.) The tone is so odd. The movie was panned and there wouldn't be another Beverly Hills Cop movie for another thirty years! I'll probably yada-yada through most of this as there's a lot of nada-nada here. 

Once again, we begin in Detroit where Axel has organized a raid to stop a car thief ring at a chop stop. Before that happens, the audience sees the criminal mechanics in the garage working on cars. The radio is on and "Come See About Me" by Diana Ross starts playing and they're all bopping their heads to the music, which, I can't blame them because it is a catchy song. But then we get an absolutely ridiculous moment when these two fat guys stop what they're doing to get up and DANCE. They're singing into a fake mic and have a whole routine and everything...wtf is going on? One guy even does a cartwheel in front of the other guy who asks him, "What are you doing?" Uh, you're one to talk! You're also part of this song-and-dance routine! 

The garage door opens and a car comes in and a guy in a suit gets out of the back seat. You can tell he's going to be the Big Bad of the movie. He asks the two fat guys if they had any trouble with the hi-jack and we see a truck that's filled with boxes that says "Property of U.S. Government." The bad guy pumps his fist and gives a comical "Yes!" like he's an eight-year-old who scored a goal in his soccer game. 

 

The fat guys were promised a payment and I knew they were going to get killed instead of paid and I was right. In fact, all the mechanics are gunned down. The crazy thing is "Come See About Me" is still playing when they're shot! This song is a little under three minutes. Just think: one minute you're dancing to Diana Ross; the next you're dead. 

Axel and his team have been given intel that the guys at the chop shop don't have guns, which is probably true, but unbeknownst to them, they're all dead by the time they plan to do their raid. Axel knocks on the door and the bad guy tells one of his cronies to shoot whoever's on the other end. Instead of opening the door and just shooting Axel, he lets Axel, who's pretending he wants to sell car parts, ramble on, until finally, Axel is able to overtake him when the bad guy takes out his gun. 

Long story short, there's a bunch of shooting. Inspector Todd, Axel's beloved boss, ends up getting shot and dies, which I hated, but I guess you need a reason for him to go after the bad guy. It just sucks that this awesome character was killed off by such a dud of a villian. Axel is chasing the bad guy (we'll learn his name later) after he gets away in the truck, but he is intercepted by a man who introduces himself as Steve Fulbright (Stephen McHattie) from the FBI and tells Axel that he got himself in the middle of an investigation and it's important that this man "not be apprehended at this time" because they want to know "where he's going and what he's got and who he's selling it to." 

Back in the chop shop, towels with "Wonder World" printed on them are found. That's a theme park near Beverly Hills and Axel believes he needs to head back to the Hills to find Todd's killer. 

They play the theme song for the first time and it sound different from the other two movies. I did some research and found out that Harold Faltemeyer, who composed the theme song, did not come back for this movie so it's performed by somebody else and it's in the "breakbeat hardcore" version, whatever that is (I just read it on Wikipedia), but all I know it sounds different and the original is better! 

Axel goes sees Rosewood who has been promoted to DDO-JSIOC, which stands for Deputy Director of Operations for Joint Systems Interdepartmental Operational Command. Terrible title! We find out that Taggart has retired to Phoenix. Now, he would have only been in his early fifties, so its seems kind of early for him to retire, but hey, good for him. At first, I just assumed John Ashton read the script and didn't want anything to do with it, but I read that he and Ronny Cox (guy who played Bogomil) had other projects they were working on. Mmm, are we sure about that? 

Another cop has replaced Taggart. Hector Elizondo plays Detective Jon Flint and when I saw him, I jokingly thought to myself, did Garry Marshall direct this movie? (The credits don't roll until the end of the movie so I had no idea who directed it, even though, yes, I realize I could have easily just looked it up.) You can tell that the writers wrote this role with Taggart in mind and they didn't even change many, if any of his lines. There are a few scene where we see Flint in his cop car and he gets a message that things are going haywire at Wonder World and he says "Axel!" like he knows Axel personally and he literally just met the guy only a few hours ago. It's so weird. 

Anyway, Axel tells him why he's come back to Beverly Hills and explains about the towels from Wonder World and that he's going to check out the theme park. Flint tells him he should talk to Ellis De Wald (Timothy Carhart) who is head of park security and "runs the biggest private security force in America." 

When Axel enters Wonder World, he is watched closely by two security guards. I get the feeling "Wonder World" was a placeholder name until they could come up with something a little better (and not so generic) and either they forgot to change the name of they just couldn't think of anything a little more clever. Seriously, who ever came up with the name "Wonder World" has no creativity. 

Axel sees employees entering through a fake tree with a door and he is able to just walk in. You think this door would have a keypad or a swipe code for employees only, but nope, he is able to open the door and walk right in! It leads downstairs where some of the rides are controlled, including one called Alien Attack. There he meets a woman named Janice who doesn't really question who he is or why he's down there. She becomes his love interest...I guess? There's some cringe-y flirting that happens between them and while he does ask her out, we never see them on a date (maybe that's a good thing) and he never kisses her at the end of the movie. He had more chemistry with Jenny from the first movie and they weren't even in a romantic relationship, although they had great banter, but maybe that's because they've been friends for a long time. 

Well, wouldn't you know it...De Wald happens to be the bad guy who shot Todd and Axel is after! Whaaaaa-? Both Flint and Rosewood think he must have the wrong guy or the killer he's after has a striking resemble to De Wald, but Axel is positive it's him. 

Back at his hotel, Janice and Uncle Dave (he's the Walt Disney of Wonder World) tell him that that Roger Fry, the park's chief operating officer, disappeared two weeks ago. He designed the whole park and knows it like the back of his hand. Dave shows Axel a note that Roger left that just says "This is important life and death", but other than that they don't have any information about why or how he disappeared. Axel thinks he must have found something someone didn't want him to find (spoiler alert: he's right).

Serge has come back (Perfect Stangers ended the year before) and we get a funny, though ultimately unnecessary scene with him. Axel and Billy come across him at some convention and he has a "Survival Boutique" booth. I cracked up when he exclaims "Ack-well!" and "Beeeeee-lieeee" and asks Billy if he remembers the espresso he made him with a lemon twits. He tells them that the art gallery has gone bankrupt. I'm surprised he didn't say anything about Jenny or that Axel didn't ask about her. Serge tells them he's selling survival items that "must conform to the 3 P's: protection, prestige, and pretty." He shows them his best-seller, a clunky-looking "gun" called the Annihilator 2000 that doesn't look like any of the adjectives he mentioned. This weapon looks like the most impractical thing ever: its equipped with a phone, microwave, CD player, radio, night vision goggles, verbal alarm system, and video camera among other thing. Did I mention it's huge and clunky and it certainly ain't pretty! 

Axel keeps harassing De Wald, but doesn't have any evidence he's behind Todd's killing. The FBI agent, Fulbright (I guess he has come to California too), reminds Axel to stop messing with his investigation because they "want him doing business as usual." He gives him a first class plane ticket back to Detroit, but we know Axel is lying when he tells Fulbright he'll be on that plane. 

Janice shows Axel the schematics of the park and he enters through a vent and above he spies on De Wald and his men creating counterfeit money. I laughed when they were only printing $1 bills. You'd think they'd print something with more value! He is literally standing above them not even attempting to hide and of course De Wald sees him and the bad guys go after him, but he gets away and calls Fulbright from a payphone in the park to tell him what's going on. 

The bad guys are able to to find him because of the security cameras and soon they have him surrounded. In a move I didn't quite understand, he takes out his gun (how the hell was he allowed in with a gun...oh, never mind) and shoots it in the air, then lies it on the ground. Why would he do that with all these people around him, not to mention many children? I didn't quite get that. They had him surrounded and they were going to apprehend him, regardless. They bring him to the underground offices and Fulbright comes in, wondering why he's not in Detroit. Axel tells him he knows what he's investigating and goes to show him the room where he found the counterfeit money. Only the money that's being printed is fake play money called Wonder World dollars. Apparently it's easy to change the setting! 

Later, Axel meets up with Uncle Dave (on the side of a street) and wants to know about the guy who disappeared. He takes another look at the note and realizes that it was written on the paper that the fake money is being printed on and it has a barcode or something to prove that it's being used for the counterfeit money. IDK, but now he has proof that counterfeit money is being made and as he says that, here comes De Wald and some of his goons. They had followed Uncle Dave and De Wald shoots him. Axel manages to get away and drive Uncle Dave to a hospital where he will survive. We never do find out what happened to the guy who disappeared. I mean, obviously they killed him, but we never found out what they did with the body. I guess the point of that storyline was that the note was written on the fake money paper. 

Anyway, yada, yada, yada, Axel ends up back at the underground offices of the park because De Wald has told him to come with the mint paper or he'll kill Janice, who he has hostage. On the way there he stops to get the Annihilator 2000 from Serge. Rosewood and Flint find out he's headed to Wonder World (damn it, I always want to write "Wally World" instead!) and head there too. 

 

Axel refuses to give De Wald the paper, there's a lot of fighting, yada, yada, yada, Billy and Janice end up trapped behind a glass door that protects something when there's a fire...IDK, who cares...Axel gets away, there's more fighting and gun shooting, yada, yada, yada. 

We will get a scene of Axel using the Annihilator 2000 against a couple of goons and at first it shoots out a net, then plays rap music, then old-timey music until it finally sprays bullets the men. Then yada, yada, yada, more bad guys are killed in the alien space ride we saw from before, we see that the trapped Billy and Janice get out and Flint has arrived. I can't remember who it was, being either Billy or Flint shoots a bad guy who falls out of the chairlift ride. Like, this amusement park has now officially become a crime scene. For some reason the annoying "Wonder World" song (think "It's a Small World After All") is playing on a loop and Flint screams (to nobody because everybody around him is dead), "Turn that f***ing song off!" I think that was the only part of this scene I laughed at. 

Finally, Axel eventually kills De Wald in some dinosaur ride and here comes Fulbright asking if he's okay. Earlier, I had thought either he or Flint is a bad guy disguised as a good guy and as soon as he points his gun at Axel, I had a good hunch it was him! Luckily, Flint shows up ad Axel is able to take a surprised Fulbright and kill him with his gun. 

There's a super weird scene where Rosewood walks in, all bloodied on one side and walking funny and asks if they're okay before collapsing. They just start laughing, saying he needs medical attention. Not sure why they're laughing when their friend looks like he's knocking on death's door!

But it's okay because everyone is okay and in the last scene we see Uncle Dave dedicating a new Wonder World character to Axel, a fox named Axel Fox. Why the hell would they want to remember this day of bloodshed? Anyway, thank God the movie is finally over. 

If you want to see Judge Reinhold in a better ' 94 movie, see The Santa Clause (and it's not even like I'm a fan of that movie, but it's better than this one!); if you want to see Hector Elizondo in a better movie that takes place in Beverly Hills, see Pretty Woman; if you want to see a better Beverly Hills Cop movie, see the first, second, or upcoming one on Netflix. Yes, the one on Netflix hasn't been released yet, but I'm confident it will be better than this one! I'm pretty sure they learned from their mistakes of this one!