Live From New York

Saturday Night

Director: Jason Reitman

Cast: Gabriel LaBelle, Rachel Sennott, Dylan O'Brien, Lamorne Morris, Nichloas Braun, Matthew Rhys, Willem Dafoe, J.K. Simmons

Released: September 27, 2024

This is a movie about the very first episode of Saturday Night Live which aired on October 11, 1975 (nearly 50 years ago!). Correction: This is a movie about the chaotic ninety minutes before the very first episode of SNL went live. 

Like Jeopardy, SNL is one of those shows that has always just been around all my life. And also like Jeopardy (which is a show SNL loves to parody!), while I don't watch it religiously, I've seen my fair share of episodes. It's just so engrained in the culture. I'll talk about my history with SNL later. 

I'm pretty sure they took more than a few liberties with this movie. If everything that happened in this film actually happened in real life, there's no way this movie would exist because SNL wouldn't have existed. I'm not saying that all the problems and obstacles they run into didn't happen in real life, but I just doubt they all happened ninety minutes before the show started! But who knows. 

The movie begins with a title card that has a quote from Lorne Michaels: "The show doesn't go on because it's ready; it goes on because it's 11:30." 

Everything is set in pretty much real time as the audience is following a very young Lorne Michaels (Gabriel LaBelle) around as he's getting ready for the first episode. Of course, we follow other main players around, but for the most part, we are with Lorne. You kind of have to already know the people involved in this world because they just throw them in, expecting you to already know them. For instance, there's this guy named Dick who is usually with Lorne, giving him advice. It wasn't until someone had called him "Ebersol" did I realize it was Dick Ebersol, who was the Vice President of NBC. He and the President of NBC were the ones who approached Michaels about creating a variety show for Saturday nights on NBC (I read that on Wikipedia). 

Backstage is just chaotic with actors, writers, producers, musicians everywhere; props and sets are being built and/or tested; there are sound checks and light checks. Nothing seems to be organized. During a skit they're rehearsing, the lights from above fall down, causing major commotion. Luckily, nobody was hurt, but it did start a fire on the couch. Can you imagine if that happened live? (Though I'm guessing the screen would go to static very quickly!) 

The original cast members are Chevy Chase, Dan Aykroyd, John Belushi, Garrett Morris, Jane Curtain, Laraine Newman, and Gilda Radner. I think they did a good job of casting people who looked similar to them (someone tall and lanky for Chase) and could do the voices. I was only familiar with two of the actors they cast for these roles: Dylan O'Brien as Dan Aykroyd (I've never seen any of his stuff, but I had heard of him) and Lamorne Morris as Garrett Morris who I knew from New Girl. 

Garrett Morris (who is still alive at 88 and presented a clip at SNL's 50th anniversary show) has a bit of an identity crisis as he is the oldest cast member and the only black cast member (the only non-white cast member, really). He's wondering why he was cast and is worried he'll only be regelated to stereotypical roles like "the butler, the shoeshine guy, or the pimp." 

Chevy Chase just comes off as an ass****, and yeah, that tracks. There's a huge altercation between him and John Belushi. It's obvious he's already looking for ways to become the next big star and it makes sense that he was the first to leave the show and gain success (and Clark Griswold will always have a special place in my heart). Gildra Radner just comes off as super loopy and I was like, wait, I thought John Belushi was the one who did drugs. Speaking of him, he's babied by Rosie Shuster (Rachel Sennott) who was Lorne's wife at the time and a writer for SNL. Belushi is not happy that he has to shave his beard or that he has to wear a bee costume for a skit. She keeps placating him and telling him that he's the star of the show and all the girls are going to love him and it was so weird. Granted, she could be doing all that because they go live in thirty minutes and he still has't signed his contract yet.

There's a few scenes of men smacking women on the butt, but it's okay because the women will smack the men right back. Yeah, different times back then! Another sign you can tell it's the '70s is that everybody is smoking.

On the wall there is a huge bulletin board covered with index cards that have all the different segments that will be on the first episode and what time they'll go on. We find out that there will be four host monologues, two stand-ups, two musical performances by two musical guests, a solo piece by Andy Kaufman, five commercial parodies, Weekend Update, a film by Albert Brooks, a muppet skit featuring Jim Henson's muppets, and seven additional sketches! I'm sorry, but what the f**k? There's NO WAY they can fit all of that in an hour and a half show (probably more like a little over an hour with the (non-parodying) commercials)! As a page points out to Lorne, the dress rehearsal was three hours. Honestly, I'm surprised it wasn't longer! Lorne seems positive that everything will fit and says there's something for everybody. That may be true, but he must be on something if he thinks all of that is going to fit in one episode (it was the '70s, after all)! 

Let's take a moment to unpack all the segments they have planned for the first episode because I have a few questions:

-Four host monologues: George Carlin was the first ever host of SNL (he's played by Matthew Rhys). I read that he wasn't in any skits, but instead did a monologue and appeared three mores times to do a stand up routine. I guess they originally wanted him to do four monologues, but why? I admit I've never watched any of the early days of SNL (maybe a few sketches, but that's it) so I don't know when it started to feel more like the SNL I grew up with and the one we're all familiar with today. But four monologues just seems insane and redundant! 

-Two stand ups: At first I thought these were for George Carlin and I was so confused why he would need four monologues and two stands up and was wondering what the difference was, but I think these were for Billy Crystal and Valri Bromfield. We see the up and coming talents backstage and both are worried that their routines are going to be cut (because they see the board!) and Billy tells Lorne that they both want four minutes each. In the end, Lorne tells them he can only give them two minutes and Billy says he can't set up in that amount of time and when Lorne asks Valerie if she can do hers in two minutes, she tells him she can. I've never heard of Valri Bromfield and I looked up her Wikipedia page and she's done stuff, but certainly doesn't have the career like Billy Crystal. So what I guess I'm trying to say, it seemed to work out in the end for him.

-Two musical guests each with two musical performances: this one surprised me a lot. I'm used to one musical act with two performances. The first musical guests on SNL were Billy Preston and Janis Ian. I admit, when someone mentions "Janis" rehearsing, I thought they were talking about Janis Joplin. I've never heard of Janis Ian. Though I guess if I knew anything about music history, I would know that Janis Joplin died in 1970 (yes, I just looked that up on Wikipedia). Like, I knew she died at a young age, just didn't know when. According to nbc.com where I'm getting all my information about the first episode, they both performed two songs each. I'm honestly surprised they didn't cut them down to one song each. I looked at the musical guests for the rest of the first season to see if they learned their lesson and it seems to be all over the place. The second episode had four (4!!!!) musical acts, the third episode didn't have any, then for the rest of the season, sometimes it's only one and sometimes it's two. Season two still has a few episodes with two musical guests, but mostly it's just one. 

-A solo piece by Andy Kaufman/a skit featuring Jim Henson's muppets - I put these two together because Nicholas Braun (who I recognized because I'm watching Succession (along with a million other shows) at the moment) plays both Andy Kaufman and Jim Henson (luckily they're never in a scene together!) and according to the article I referenced before, both of these made the show. The only thing I know about Andy Kaufman is that the R.E.M. song "Man on the Moon" is about him and Jim Carrey played him in Man on the Moon, a movie I've never seen. Either the movie ripped off the title of the R.E.M. song (it was released seven years after the song) or there's some reason why he's called "the man on the moon", but I really don't care that much to research it. 

-"Weekend Update" (I have no idea if that should be italicized or in quotes or just left alone) - even after fifty years, some things never change. "Weekend Update": has always been a part of SNL (although it did try new formats and changed its name to "Saturday Night Newbreak" and "SNL Newbreak" which just don't sound as good) but that makes sense because the news provides a great source for comedy. When they're rehearsing for the first ever "Weekend Update", we see Lorne Michaels sit in as the anchor and I was like, Whaaat? because I had no idea he was ever supposed to have a part in the show. Whenever we see him, he's always just playing himself, for a few minutes, usually in the monologue. When he's rehearsing, he's reading the cue cards but nobody laughs. John Belushi plays the meteorologist for the weather report and is talking about how March sometimes goes in like a lion and out like a lamb or vice versa and starts commenting about how other countries use different animals. This doesn't really make sense because the first episode ever of SNL aired in October (October 11, 1975, to be exact). Also, he ends up just screaming and everyone is laughing like it's funny, but it's not. 

-Five commercial parodies - usually SNL only has one parody commercial, so I was shocked when they had five. I read that they played one during a break between Weekend Update and I assume they played another one at the beginning of the show, so I'm not sure where the rest were sprinkled throughout or if they ended up playing all five during the first show. Surely, three of them got axed! Why not save them for other shows so they're spread out a little? 

-A film by Albert Brooks - I don't really have anything to say about this. I don't even know if they played this during the show or it got moved to another episode. 

-Seven additional skits - I still can't believe they wanted to show all that, PLUS seven additional skits! Did they not know the concept of time back in the '70s?!

Lorne has to meet with about fifty NBC executives in the green room. They are with affiliates from all across the country and will decide if the show is good enough to continue to air. Chevy is there to do some stand up, and, yikes, lots of racist and sexist jokes. Again, a very different time in our history. Lorne tells them about some of the stuff they'll be seeing tonight and adds, "There's never been a television show made for or by the generation that grew up watching television." That is pretty cool when you think about it that way. Lorne has admired to Dick Ebersol that he doesn't know what the show is, but once he sees it, he'll know. That seems like something you should know before the show goes on national television! 

At one point we see Don Pardo practicing announcing all the cast members' names. When he gets to Dan Akroyd's last name, he struggles with it and says, "How the f*** do you pronounce it?" You think he would have known that much earlier than thirty minutes before they go to air! Whoever played him, did a great job of emulating his voice. As soon as I heard him, I was like, Oh, yeah, that's the announcer guy from SNL. 

Lorne gets a phone call from Johnny Carson (we only hear his voice and whoever did his voice did a very good job) who basically tells him that his (Lorne's) show (meaning SNL) isn't going to last and that it's his (Carson's) f***ing network" and his (Carson's again) night. So I was confused when he said that because I thought hisbshow aired Monday through Friday, you know like most late night talk shows. I tried to look this up and from what I could gather, they showed reruns of The Tonight Show on the weekends. (Seems like overkill to me.) Or at least on Saturdays. Sounds to me like every night was Johnny's night! I knew The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson was on for a long time, but I had no idea it was on for forty years, running from 1962-1992! I also had no idea it was filmed in New York the first decade before moving to Burbank. Anyway, not sure why Carson was so angry. He still had his show. 

Willem Dafoe plays Dave Tebet, who is head of talent (I'm not sure exactly what his job was, but I looked him up and he's the guy who found Johnny Carson to fill in for the host before him (the hell? I thought Johnny Carson WAS the first ever host! TIL something new!). For some reason Milton Berle (played by J.K Simmons) is there and Tebet introduces Lorne to him. We find out that 97% of the American viewing audience was watching his show which is insane, but then again, back then they only had a limited amount of channels they could watch. The only thing I've ever seen Milton Berle was when he was in an episode of Beverly Hills, 90210, lol. I think he played some guy at an old folks' home that Brandon was volunteering at. Berle is depicted as having a huge ego (and a huge appendage which he flashes at Chases's girlfriend (fiancee?) who he's blatantly hitting on in front of Chevy. He comes off as a creepy old man, hitting on all the pretty younger women. We get a little foreshadowing when Milton tells Lorne that he's looking forward to hosting the show and Tebet tells him they'd be honored to have him. I say foreshadowing because he did host in season four but was banned from ever hosting again and it was 30 years before the show was aired again as a rerun. I guess he was very arrogant, thinking he was better than everybody (I mean, when you have 97% of the American television viewing audience watching you in your prime, you'd probably have an ego the size of Alaska too) and his jokes weren't funny and nobody liked him. Anyway, I read that there's no proof that Berle was at the studio on the first night of SNL's airing, but they probably just wanted that in there because of his reputation with SNL...but that's just speculation on my part. 

Tebet tells Lorne he's heard that there's been some issues, but Lorne assures him that everything is under control. Tebet says "If, for some reason you can't lock your script or commit your cast to legally binding contacts, rest assured, the country will be happy to watch Johnny Carson." Sounds like a threat to me! Lorne replies that could just play the tape of the dress rehearsal. We see that the tape for The Tonight Show is cued up and ready to go just in case. 

It's getting closer to going live and everything is still in chaos. Dick Ebersol tells Lorne that they should forgo the show this week and "come back stronger next week, debut with Paul Simon." Paul Simon was the second ever host of SNL (though not the musical guest for some reason, I guess the days of having someone host and be the musical guest wasn't invented quite yet) and having him be the first ever host would make more sense in hindsight because of his relationship with the show. He's hosted four times and been a musical guest 13 times and was at the 50th anniversary show. George Carlin only hosted twice. Now, to be fair, they couldn't see the future, but yeah, Paul Simon would have been a pretty epic first ever host. Lorne refuses and still wants to go on with the show and Dick tells him that NBC wants him to fail because they "make more money playing reruns of The Tonight Show." (I guess because more people will be watching it?) The reason they don't just do that is because "it's a contract dispute - they're trying to prove to Johnny Carson that the reruns are inevitable so they built a show that was guaranteed to fail." They don't think a ninety minute live show with a bunch of unknowns will last. Dick predicts that they'll play the Carson tape. 

He finally gets John Belushi to sign his contact (I think? We never actually see him sign anything, but he was a cast member, so he must have) and now there's fifteen minutes to the show. Finn Wolfhard (who I am shocked has never hosted; I feel like he or Millie Bobby Brown should have hosted by now!) plays an NBC page whose job is to get people off the street to come in for a free show and he manages to get a pretty good crowd. 

Now there's ten minutes to go and Tebet tells Lorne the show's not ready and they're going to play the Carson tape. Lorne rebuffs this and Tebet  wants him to show him something to prove that show is good enough to go on air. Andy Kaufman is on stage ready to perform and Lorne puts on the Mighty Mouse theme song (with a record player, no less) and Kaufman lip-synchs to the "Here I come to save the day" part. Everyone (except Tebet) is laughing, but personally, I didn't get it. They next perform Weekend Update and as a last minute change Lorne tells Chevy to be the anchor. While all this is going on, all I can think is, I can't believe they're doing all of this with ten minutes before the show is supposed to start. Shouldn't Tebet have watched the dress rehearsal? 

There is some tension right before they're to go live. Are they gonna air the show live or will they play the Carson tape? There are literally five seconds left when a guy in the control room asks if they're going live or to the tape. But, of course, as we all know, the show airs. (This movie wouldn't exist if it hadn't!) Tebet is the one who tells him to go live. 

The movie ends with the very first skit of SNL (with John Belushi and Michael O'Donoghue, a head writer) called where Belushi plays a foreigner (from Eastern Europe, I'm guessing from its accent) who is learning English from O'Donoghue's character. The skit really isn't that funny (but that's SNL for you, sometimes the skits can be hilarious and other times, they can fall flat and sometimes they're just meh) and the most iconic part is when Chevy Chase comes onto the set when the skit has ended wearing a headset and utters the iconic phrase for the very first time, "Live from New York, it's Saturday Night!" 

I first started watching SNL in the early '90s when I was probably too young and I'm sure many of the jokes and all the political stuff flew over my head. I do remember getting a kick out of Toonces the driving cat. I started watching in the Phil Hartman era and he was my favorite cast member (and he'll always be my favorite Bill Clinton) during this time. One of my absolutely favorite sketches from this era was when Chris Farley played a motivational speaker who "lives in a van down by the river!" LOL, I'll still quote that every now and then. There's so many great skits, that I'd really have to think about my favorite. Maybe one day I'll post my top twenty SNL sketches after I've had time to review them. 

I have't watched the show live in many years; now, thanks to YouTube I just watch the clips at my own leisure. I'll find some from, like eleven years ago that I had never seen before. 

How about a couple of SNL fun facts? The show has had many young hosts, many in their earlier 20s and a handful of 17, 18, and 19 year olds, but do you know how old the five youngest hosts were? I knew the three youngest already, but didn't know who rounded out the top five.

5. Malcolm Jamal Warner (Theo from The Cosby Show) was 16 when he hosted in 1986. 

4. Jodie Foster was 14 when she hosted in 1976. Sometimes I forget that she was a child actor.

3. Fred Savage was 13 when he hosted in 1990. 

2. Macaulay Culkin was 11 when he hosted in 1991.

1. Drew Barrymore was 7 (yes, SEVEN!) when she hosted in 1982, obviously promoting E.T. I watched her monologue and while she is very adorable, it's a little cringe. No fault of her, though. She comes out with one of the cast members (I don't know who, I'm not familiar with that era except for Eddie Murphy and Julia Louis-Dryfus and it wasn't either of them). They talk about E.T. for a few minutes, which is fine, but then he asks her which cast member she would marry. Like, why are we asking a seven-year-old which adult she would marry? It's so weird. 

I recently learned that a total rand-o once hosted this show. And when I say rand-o, I mean a civilian. Someone who isn't an actor or musician or athlete or politician or isn't in the pubic eye at all. In 1977, there was a contest called "Anyone Can Host" where anyone off the street could write an essay (of 25 words or less, IDK why that made me laugh so much when I read that) of why they would be a great host for the show. An 80-year-old German immigrant from New Orleans named Miskel Spillman won. And the crazy thing is, they knew how old she was when she was selected. According to the Wiki article on this, her essay was "I'm 80 years old. I need one more cheap thrill, since my doctor told me I only have another 25 years left." Yes, it was funny, and I'm not trying to be ageist or anything, but why are we asking an 80 year old nobody to host this show? To be fair, I think this was a terrible idea no matter how old the civilian host would have been. Nobody wants to tune in to watch SNL when it's hosted by a mere mortal. Oh, well, I'm sure her friends and family enjoyed the show! She would be the oldest person to host the show (not a shock!) until Betty White hosted 32 years later (!!) in 2010 when she was 88. At least Betty White was and will alway remain a National Treasure. I watched the episode (usually skipping ahead quite a few times) and it wasn't that great. She was only in a few skits (probably for good reason) and didn't have good comedic timing and was blatantly staring at the cue cards. Not that I blame her because she's not a trained actor, but they obviously learned their lesson because that never happened again! 

I already mentioned the skit where Chris Farley plays a motivational speaker is one of my faves, so here's a clip of that if you've never seen it:

Emotions

Inside Out 2

Director: Kelsey Mann

Voice Talent: Amy Poehler, Maya Hawke, Phyllis Smith, Lewis Black, Tony Hale, Liza Lapira, Diane Lane, Kyle MacLachlan

Released: June 14, 2024

Oscar nominations:

Best Animated Film (lost to Flow)

A few years ago I ranked the Pixar movies and Inside Out was my #2. (Toy Story 3 will always be #1 in my heart!) While there have been more Pixar movies added, none of them are pushing the top two out of the way. I remember seeing Inside Out (and crying my eyes out!) and thinking how clever it was with the emotions of an eleven-year-old girl named Riley being the main characters of the movie. Now Riley is thirteen and the original emotions are back, but we're about to meet some new ones! Of course the original emotions are Joy (Amy Poehler), Anger (Lewis Black), Fear (Tony Hale), Disgust (Liza Lapira), and my favorite (as a character, not an emotion!), Sadness (Phyllis Smith). 

Now that Riley is thirteen, she is beginning to form a Sense of Self and her own beliefs. Every time she comes up with a new belief, it is taken to the Belief System. Many of Riley's beliefs include the same sentiment such as "I'm kind," "I'm a good friend," I'm a good person", "I'm strong and brave", "Mom and Dad are proud of me." As you can imagine, Joy is delighted that Riley has such a strong Sense of Self. 

Riley and her two best friend, Grace and Bree, who all play hockey together, have been invited to a three-day overnight hockey camp. Now three days seems really short, but I'm guessing they did it because they thought two weeks would be too long. They were invited by Coach Roberts, the coach of the high school team,  the Fire Hawks, and these three days could determine whether the girls make the team or not. 

The girls will be starting high school next year and it's only on the drive to the camp when Grace and Bree tell Riley that they will be attending a different high school from Riley. I'm so confused because they were invited by the coach of the Fire Hawks, so why would she invite two girls who will be going to a different high school? The whole point of this storyline is for Riley to have anxiety about her friends going to a different high school, so she tries to impress the older girls who are already on the Fire Hawks so she can be friends with them and thus won't be a friendless loser when she starts high school. 

Riley is starting to have doubts that she's any good at hockey because she recently got a penalty. There's a funny scene of Joy taking that memory and tossing it in the Back of the Mind with all the other negative memories so they won't weigh on her. Joy has catapulted many of these not-so-great memories to the Back of the Mind including one where Riley was waving at a guy who was actually waving at a girl behind her. Heh, poor Riley. I loved it when they were talking about that particular memory and Joy says, "Oh, yeah, that was awkward." 

While the Emotions are sleeping (they sleep when Riley sleeps), they are awakened by a loud beeping noise and wake up to see a big red button blinking. Now, if you remember at the end of the first movie when their control console is remodeled, they see this big red button that's labeled "puberty" or "poo bore tee" as one of them (I think it was Disgust) pronounces it. At that time they're not worried about it (and don't seem to even know what it means), but now the red light is getting brighter and the siren is getting louder. They're frantically trying to turn it off, but that's one switch you can't turn off! Joy manages to rip the button off and places it in the tube that will send it to the Back of the Mind but of course that's not going to work. Did these Emotions not get the handbook on puberty? 

A demolition team appears and has come to expand the place for "the others". Of course, this means the new Emotions that we are introduced to. These include Anxiety (Maya Hawke), Envy (Ayo Edebiri), Embarrassment, and Ennui. I would argue you can definitely have all these emotions before you turn thirteen, you may just not realize what you're feeling. Also, I understand from a movie perspective, they can't have all these emotions in the first movie. 

Anxiety is an emotion I know all too well because I'm pretty sure  anxiety controls me most of the time. I am someone who worries about everything all the time. While Sadness is the main Emotion in the first movie, Anxiety is in the driver's seat in this movie for the most part. Poor Riley. I love the designs and personalties for the new Emotions. Because yellow (Joy), blue (Sadness), red (Anger), green (Disgust), and purple (Fear) are already taken, we get new colors for the new Emotions. Well, sort of. Two colors are used again, just a different shade. I was a little surprised that Envy is more of a blue shade than green but after looking up some information about her on the Pixar Wiki fandom (now there's a site you could get lost in the wormholes!), I found out she was supposed to be emerald, but her color was changed to aquamarine so she wouldn't look too similar to Disgust. I think a dark green would have worked for her because Disgust is a shade of light green. Embarrassment is pink (of course) and the biggest Emotion in size and wears a hoodie that he hides his face in throughout 99% of the movie. He mostly just talks in squeaks and yelps and he doesn't utter a sentence until the end of the movie. Quick sidetone: I find it interesting that Riley's Emotions are both male and female while when we see other people's Emotions controlling them (like her parents or her friends), they're all the same gender of whoever the person they're controlling. Ennui is voiced by a French actress so I love the Emotion that's a French word has a French accent. We are told that Ennui emulates boredom, but I found her to have a "too cool for school" attitude, like she didn't give a flying you-know-what. I think being bored and trying too act like you don't care are two completely different things. Anxiety's design is my favorite. She is orange with hair that sticks up and reminds me of a Fraggle Rock. I was listening to the Filmspotting review of this movie and one of the hosts said the same thing, heh. She is also the definition of her name, always scurrying about and worrying about everything. 

The same day the new Emotions arrive is the same day that Riley arrives at the hockey camp with her friends. When she gets to the campus, she bumps into Valentina (Val) Ortiz who is the captain of the Fire Hawks. Anxiety takes over because she thinks if Riley becomes friends with Val, she'll be with the in crowd and have friends when she attends high school. This causes Anxiety and Joy to get into an argument about whether Riley should stick with her original friends or befriend the cool new girls. Anxiety says that while it's Fear's job to protect Riley from the scary stuff she can see, it's her job to protect her from the scary stuff she can't see. You know, I never really thought of it that way. 

In the locker room before the first practice, Val introduces Riley to the other Fire Hawks, a group of four or five girls. Again, I'm not really sure why they're at this skills camp if they're already on the team, but I guess extra practice is always good. Val invites her to sit with them, but Riley tells her she's saving seats for her friends (they're in the locker room getting ready to play hockey, it's not like they're going to be in there that long). Bree and Grace come in and the three friends are all excitedly taking selfies with Riley's phone, making faces and chatting animatedly. Coach Roberts enters and tells everyone to "settle in" and while all the other girls are giving her their full attention, the three friends are still gigging. When the coach gets stern with them and tells them they need their focus, they get quiet, but it's too late and the Coach starts passing around a box telling everyone they need to put their phones in it. This makes everyone pretty (and rightly) annoyed with Riley. Yeah, I'd be pretty irked if I had to surrender my phone because of someone's moronic actions. 

You would think after that, Riley would be on her best behavior, but she keeps talking with her friends and now the Coach has them skate lines. Anxiety does her work and pretty much has Riley groveling to Val so she can get on her good side and try to make a better impression. When Coach Roberts tells them to split into two teams, Anxiety wants her to join the team with Val, but Joy wants her to be on the team with Bree and Grace. Okay, I'm confused....why is Riley even getting the option to choose? Shouldn't the Coach have numbered them off or something or have two captains with a schoolyard pick? I get that it's for the purpose of the plot, but in no universe would this ever happen. Says the person who never participated in sports because no athletic bone exists in my body. 

Anxiety ends up getting her way after she tosses Riley's "Sense of Self" away (all the way to the Back of the Mind) and tells Joy that they'll build her a new one. The original Emotions are bottled up (literally - they're all stuffed into a bottle. As Fear puts it, "We are suppressed emotions!") and sent away to The Vault while the new Emotions take some new thoughts down to the Belief System: "If I'm a Fire Hawk, I won't be alone" and "If I'm good at hockey, then I'll have friends." (Aren't these pretty much the same exact thought?)

The Vault is a lair-like place that holds Riley's deep dark secrets, one being that she still likes Bloofy (I'm a guessing a portmanteau of Bluey and Goofy) an animated kids' show about a dog that has an educational element to it. I'm not sure why a thirteen-year-old would like a show that's geared towards three-year-olds. From what I gather, this show seems like it's very basic, teaching toddlers very simple things, but I guess that's why it's one of her deep darks secrets. 

Joy tells the others they need to go to the Back of the Mind to get Riley's Sense of Self back and all they have to do is follow the Stream of Conscience (reminds me of the Train of Thought from the first movie) that will take them there. Joy is already imagining how the scenario will go: "Riley will be Riley again" after they put back her Sense of Self and Joy adds, "And then I'll tell Anxiety, 'Hey don't worry so much anymore.'" Heh, that made me laugh. That's like telling Joy not to be so chipper all the time. 

Meanwhile, Anxiety has made Riley get up super early to get in some practice. (Probably not too hard for Riley because I know when I have anxiety I can't sleep!) Anxiety feels validation when Val comes in early as well and tells Riley, "You get what it takes to be the best" and invites her to come hang out with her and her friends later that evening. Both Anxiety and Envy are super excited about this. 

"Oh, Poooooouchyyyyy!"

The suppressed emotions are released with the help of Bloofy and his pal,     Pouchy. It was amusing because Bloofy and Pouchy are animated in that  crude, simplistic way of a children's daily animated half-hour TV show and it was funny seeing them juxtaposed against the gorgeous computer animation of a Pixar movie. Pouchy is a talking pouch (imagine that) with the zipper for his mouth. I think I now understand Riley's secret and shameful love for this show because Pouchy is hilarious and he's not even trying to be. Joy tells their new friends they need to get out of the Vault and Bloofy turns to the camera and asks the audience what they should use to escape and Pouchy takes out a few objects with only one being obvious to get then out (that would be the exploding dynamite!). 

Once they're released, they come to the Stream of Conscience which has whatever Riley is thinking about at the moment floating in it. What I want to know is what if she's thinking an abstract thought? They see a bunch of food including pizza, an apple, a burger, popcorn, chips, and milk (eww...pizza and milk...two foods that should never go together, but then again I think milk is only good paired with chocolate). Just moments before, after practice had ended, Riley had told Val how hungry she was and how she could go for a pizza so she had food on the mind. 

Joy wants them all to hop on a piece of pizza to use as a raft, but Sadness points out that they'll need somebody at the console at Headquarters to bring them back (this movie gets a bit convoluted with its geography of Riley's mind) in the tube so Joy says someone is going have to climb all the way back in the tube (and it's a loooong way) and Sadness is picked for the job. 

So right now, we have three different storylines going on. We have the one with Joy, Anger, Fear, and Disgust continuing their quest to restore Riley's Sense of Self, we have the one led by Anxiety with Envy right beside her both wanting to make sure Riley is set up well for her future in high school, and we have the one with Riley herself at hockey camp. 

Anxiety and Envy are now worried when the girls from the Fire Hawks and Riley are looking through the window of Coach Brown's office door and see a red notebook on her desk. The girls tell Riley that their coach keeps all the notes about all the players in there. The emotions (especially Anxiety) are worried that something bad may be written about Riley in there. Now, Val and the other girls (sorry, I don't remember their names; I don't know if they were even given names) are not portrayed as mean girls, but this was kind of a dick move for the girls to tell Riley about it. Now the poor girl is going to be worrying over it. Maybe it wasn't the older girls' intention (and, again, I know it's for the purpose of the plot), but I didn't love this. 

Later that evening Riley is hanging out with Val and the other girls in a lounge area when she's asked who her favorite band is. She replies, "Get Up and Glow! They're so awesome!" My first thought was it would have been a clever crossover if she had named the band the girls see in Turning Red, 4*Town, but then I remembered that movie takes place in 2002 or 2003 so it wouldn't have been in the right time frame. I assume its supposed to be 2017 in this movie since it takes place two years after the first movie. Anyway, Get Up and Glow gives me Panic! At the Disco vibes. (Do you think it's Get Up and Glow or Get Up and Glow! or perhaps even Get Up and GLOW! Punctuation is everything, you know.) She immediately becomes embarrassed when Val says she was "all over them in middle school", indicating only immature middle schoolers like them. Oof. Anxiety and Envy are both freaking out and Envy says they need to think of a band the other girls think is cool, not one that Riley likes. They recall everything Riley knows about music and this causes all those musical memories to push Sadness back to Headquarters (undetected because she's buried under all those memories). Just imagine recalling every single artist, band, and song you can think of. Yeah, that would open a FLOODGATE of recollections. 

Ennui decides to take over so Riley sarcastically tells the other girls how much she loves Get Up and Glow and passes off her original answer as a joke. We now jump back to Joy and the others who have been floating down the Stream of Consciousness but have to abandon ship when a huge chasm appears. They are told by a demolition worker that it's "a sar-chasm." Heh, I can only imagine how proud whoever came up with that in the writers' room was. You know the writers for this movie (and the first one) had a lot of fun with the word play (Train of Thought, Stream of Conscience, and later we'll get a Brain Storm). What I loved about the sar-chasm is that whatever Joy and the others yelled across the chasm to a couple of demolition workers, they heard it as sarcasm. When Joy calls over to them in a very sincere way, "We're lucky to run into you guys, we really need your help", they heard it in a very sarcastic tone and of course aren't happy about it and don't help them. 

Back in reality, Riley finds out they're having a scrimmage tomorrow and the girls tell her it could decide her fate of being on the team. The more I think of it, the less I like these girls. They sure do love to taunt Riley for no reason. 

While Anxiety and Envy are ensuring that Riley makes the team and maintains her friendships with the hockey girls, Embarrassment finds Sadness and she indicates for him to be quiet. (Lucky for her, he hardly talks.) She is looking at files and he helps her by finding the ones she needs. 

Now Joy and the others have entered Imagination Land (I believe that was also in the first movie...isn't that where Riley's dreams were produced?) only to find that Anxiety and Envy are using Rileys imagination against her. They have several workers there (I'm not sure what they were called) drawing different scenes of all the scenarios Anxiety has Riley thinking of that could happen during the scrimmage. These include things like what if she hits the puck in her own net or what if she misses a pass or what if the other team wins. Joy and the others quickly come up with more positive scenarios such as Riley wins and everyone hugs her. Okay, I'm going to let you in a little secret why I think it's better (and maybe that's not the right word) to be a pessimist than an optimist. When you think of all the worse scenarios and it happens, then at least you're prepared for it. However, when you're hoping for the best outcome or a good one, and it doesn't happen, it's even worse! But if you're expecting something bad to happen, but something good happen, it's the best scenario! In this case, if I were in Riley's shoes, I would totally be thinking of all the horrible things that could happen during a hockey scrimmage...the last thing I would be thinking is that I would win and everyone would hug me. But like I said earlier, I'm pretty much controlled by anxiety! 

Anxiety is being projected on a large screen and she and Joy have a back and forth:

Anxiety: "What if Riley is better than Val and then Val hates her?"

Joy: "What if Riley is better than Val and then Val respects her?"

Anxiety: "What if Riley is so bad she has to give up hockey forever?" 

Joy: "What if Riley does so well that the coach cries and the Olympics call and she rallies a weary nation to victory?"

Heh, even Disgust has to remind Joy that "reality is also a thing." 

So there's a very niche reference to a famous Apple commercial from 1984 that was only aired once. I only know about it because I learned about it in an economics class in high school....I think, I don't really remember how I learned about it honestly, but it's a pretty famous commercial. One of the Imagination Land illustrations throws a chair at the screen with Anxiety's face and as soon as I saw that I knew they were parodying that 1984 Apple commercial. Yeah, I felt pretty smug about knowing that. I won't lie. Go Google it. Another reference that I caught was one from Network when Anger tells the Imagination Land workers, "You don't have to take it anymore!" I've never seen Network but even I know the "I'm mad as hell and I don't have to take it anymore!" line from Peter Finch (I did have to look up the name of the actor). 

Now that Anxiety's plans have been foiled, she wakes a sleeping Riley to make her consider sneaking into the coach's office to read the notebook to see what was written about her. Over a walkie-talkie (Riley's mind truly is a complex place), Sadness warns Joy and the others what Riley is up to and Joy tells her she has to stop her. Apparently Coach Roberts doesn't keep her office door locked. I sure hope she does't keep anything valuable in her office! And it's not like she keeps her notebook locked in a desk, no, it's just sitting on her desk just asking to be read. I'm guessing it's really early in the morning (or maybe late at night?) because right before she enters the office, she hears a janitor down the hall and quickly slips into the office and slides down to the floor and locks the door so the janitor can't get in (or see her when he uses a flashlight to peer in the room). 

Riley picks up the notebook. Sadness has control over her and she starts crying until Anxiety takes over and Riley wipes away her tears and determinedly opens the notebook. All she sees written under her name is "not ready yet." I'm sorry, but that's all that was written? What are the reasons she's not ready? Some coach! You'd think she'd have a list of things Riley needs to improve on. But maybe that's for the best because I'm sure that would have wrecked Riley even more had there been specifics. 

Anxiety and Envy are freaking out and Anxiety says they're going to have "to change Coach's mind" and all they need are "lots of idea." Cut to the other Emotions who are getting pelted with little colorful pellets. It is, of course, a "brain storm". Joy catches a few of them and some of the ideas include "hog the puck" and "trash talk the other team." I don't know how much the latter would help Riley make the team. If anything, you would probably be called out for bad sportsmanship. Anxiety and Envy realize the ideas are too small and they need to come up with a "big idea" (which is in the shape of a lightbulb that gets screwed into the console). Since Val made two goals at the scrimmage that made her a Fire Hawk, Riley's idea is to score three goals. 

At this point, Joy and the others have reached the Back of the Mind to retrieve Riley's old Sense of Self which is sitting on top of a giant heap of bad memories that Joy has previously sent there. Riley's new Sense of Self now has a new mantra, "I'm not good enough" and this alarms Anxiety, but she spins it as Riley knows there's "always room for self-improvement." 

The only way for the original Emotions to get back to Headquarters has diminished and Joy admits to the others that she "doesn't know how to stop Anxiety." (Who does, am I right?) In the end, they summon their good friend Pouchy who's carrying a bunch of dynamite and they use that to blow up the cliff so they can "ride an avalanche of bad memories back to Headquarters." I couldn't help notice that some of the bad memories were yellow which would indicate joy. All the other colors/emotions I can see being part of a bad memory, but shouldn't there be no yellow in that pile of bad memories? 

While playing the scrimmage, Riley makes her first score even though one of her teammates was open and told her to pass it. She continues to play erratically, stealing the puck from one of her teammates and makes another goal. She's happy, but her teammates aren't. She makes her third goal, but at the result of slamming into another player (who happens to be Grace) who goes flying cross the ice. The coach puts Riley in the penalty box for two minutes. She appears to be having a full-blown panic attack (as we see Anxiety furiously controlling the console and Envy tells her she's putting too much pressure on Riley). 

The other Emotions have returned and Joy tells Anxiety that she can't choose who Riley is and that she needs to let her go. In the end, Riley's Sense of Self is a mixture of the old ("I'm a good person") with the new ("I'm not good enough"). Riley, like everyone else, is a complex person and her Emotions love her just the way she is. Riley apologizes to her friends and feels much better as Joy takes over and she is able to have fun playing hockey. (And in the end, she does make the Fire Hawks. At least, it's implied that she does.)

Like I mentioned earlier, Inside Out is my second favorite Pixar movie, so of course I was delighted when I found out there would be a sequel. I thought this movie was solid, but nowhere near as good as the first one. While I did cry during this movie, I was bawling during the first one. I also though the stakes were much higher for Riley in the first movie when she moved from Minnesota to San Franscisco. Yeah, having your close friends go to a different school would suck, but she's still going to be able to see them. In the first movie, she moved from Minnesota to San Fransisco. Her parents (voiced by Diane Lane and Kyle MacLachlan) aren't in this one as much as the first one. I did forget to mention a fun side character, Nostalgia (voice by June Squib) who is this adorable granny-looking character who likes to reminisce about the past and the other Emotions have to remind her Riley's not quite ready for her. (She is only 13, after all...does anyone really have nostalgia when they're 13? Well, maybe she has nostalgia for the days when she watched Bloofy!)

The Heat is On

Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F

Director: Mark Molloy

Cast: Eddie Murphy, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Taylor Paige, Judge Reinhold, John Ashton, Kevin Bacon

Released: July 3, 2024

Viewed: July 3, 2024

It just happened to be pure coincidence that I had recently watched and reviewed the first three Beverly Hills Cop movies; I had no idea there was a fourth one coming to Netflix, but since I had watched the first movie, the trailer for the new one popped up and that's how I found out about it. By the time I had watched all the previous films, I was ready to watch this one and I caught all (well, most of) the shout-outs and nods of the previous films (well, the first two, really).

This movie is definitely going for the nostalgia factor for the old school fans. Why, within the first ten minutes you hear not one, but two songs that may sound a little familiar (especially if you just watched the first two films!). The opening scene starts with Axel driving through Detroit as "The Heat Is On" by Glenn Frey is playing on the radio (even though it appears to be winter, so kinda ironic!). If you remember, that's the song that started the very first film. So here's something I never knew: that song was written specifically for Beverly Hills Cop. Talk about a TIL moment! I have always been aware of that song for as long as I can remember, but I had no idea it was specifically written for BHC until I read it just now on Wikipedia. I was wanting to see what year it came out, thinking maybe it was the hot summer song of 1984 or maybe it came out a few years prior. Thinking about it now, it makes sense since "The Heat" is slang for police (I guess it has something to do with the red siren on their cars...IDK). 

About ten minutes later, when Axel and his partner (who's pretty much a nonentity in this as we never see him again after this scene) are chasing bad guys who were robbing the Detroit hockey arena (I guess they were taking rings and trophies, something that must have been of value), "Shakedown" by Bob Seger starts playing and that was payed during the opening scene of Beverly Hills Cop II. Now I knew that song was specifically for that movie as it was nominated for an Oscar. Here's a hot take (maybe, I really don't know if it is or not): I like "Shakedown" more than "The Heat Is On".

We'll also get "The Neutron Dance" by the Pointer Sisters that played early on in the first movie later on in this movie when Axel is getting into some hijinx in Beverly Hills, around Rodeo Drive. A remix of "Hot in the City" plays when he arrives in The Hills, but I can't remember if they played that song in any of the original movies. 

Another way they get the nostalgia factor is bringing back a lot of the characters from the previous movies. Of course we will get Judge Reinhold and John Ashton returning as Rosewood and Taggart (40 years older, but to be fair, everyone is 40 years older than they were in the first movie!), but we also get Paul Reiser returning as Jeffrey Friedman and Bronson Pinchot returning as Serge. Jeffrey is now the Chief and in his office there's a photo of Inspector Todd, the Chief from the first three movies, so that was a nice touch. When Axel and his partner (whose name I don't even remember because it's not that relevant) are chasing the bad guys in a snowplow (very reminiscent to when he and Rosewood are chasing the bad guys in a cement truck in the second movie), the partner calls it into the station and when one of the officers hears it and says "Let me guess...Foley", Jeffrey sticks his head in the room and says "Did you say Foley?" Ha! 

A bunch of cars and city property get damages because Axel can't drive the snow plow (I don't think Axel can drive any vehicle that isn't a car) and Jeffrey is furious. It's not an Axel Foley movie without Detroit or Beverly Hills getting completely destroyed (and BH will soon get its turn!) and the Chief getting angry with Axel. Jeffrey is irked that he himself was screamed at "for 45 minutes straight" by the police commissioner. He tells Axel that he's retiring and basically he won't be there anymore to help get Axel out of his jams because that's apparently what he did in the past. 

Of course, there are new characters too. We find out that Axel has a daughter named Jane (Taylor Paige) who he rarely sees. She works in (or perhaps near) Beverly Hills as a defense attorney and we see a quick shot of her ID card which has her birth year as 1991. This confused me a bit because this would mean that Axel had a young child in Beverly Hills Cop 3 (which came out in 1994) and, of course there is no mention of that because they didn't know they would be making a sequel thirty years later where Axel would have a grown daughter. It's just interesting that's the year they chose as her birth year. We get some backstory that he moved his family out to Beverly Hills when Jane was a kid because it wasn't safe in Detroit because the 12th Street Mafia was out to kill him and his family. He eventually divorced Jane's mother and moved back to Detroit. We never find out who the mother is (nobody we know, presumably) or if she's still around and we never find out the story with this 12th Street Mafia. I honestly don't even think the writers know and didn't really care that much. It certainly sounds like we could use a Beverly Hills Cop 3.5 because there's certainly a movie (or two!) missing from this timeline! 

Because Jane dislikes her father so much, she goes by Jane Saunders instead of Jane Foley. (I'm guessing Saunders is her mom's name.) When we meet her, she is meeting a young man in prison named Sam Enriquez who claims he's been set up to look like he killed a cop but insists he didn't. She tells him she is representing him pro bono and wants to hear his story of what happened. He says that somebody talked him into "muling one time". He was in the passenger seat with Copeland, an undercover cop, and he saw a black SUV trailing them. He tried to call someone, but his phone wouldn't work. The SUV pulled up alongside them and a gun pointed out and shot Copeland. Sam grabbed the wheel and steered them into the SUV, but lost control and hit a pole. The next thing he knew, he was waking up with the gun in his lap next to a dead body. 

Jane is suspicious of Copeland and thinks he's a dirty cop. At the court hearing, she tells the judge that "the defense will be submitted a motion to subpoena Lieutenant Copeland's finical records as [they] believe he was involved in potential criminal activity." 

In the parking garage, after she gets in her car, she gets a very clear message that there are people out there who do not want her working on this case. She knows this because her car, which she is still in, mind you, because she was unable to escape, is pushed off the parking garage by about four men in masks and she's just dangling there (the masked men were kind enough to at least tie her car with chains attached to poles so at least she didn't drop). However, that was just a warning, and next time she probably won't be so lucky. 

The police arrive as well as Rosewood, who now has his own investigating company. Apparently, he was the one who got her involved in the case. He tells her she needs to drop the case because he doesn't want to have to tell her dad that she got killed. When she refuses to give up on the case, he tells her that she and her dad are exactly the same. Billy calls Axel to tell him what's going on and this is the reason for Axel going to Beverly Hills. After hanging up the phone, two men have their guns pointed at Billy and he is kidnapped. He was in a junkyard and had "just got the evidence [he] needed". Axel had heard dogs barking and asked him where he was and learning that he's in an impound will be a clue for later on. 

Jeffrey drives Axel to the airport and tells him to "watch his ass out there" because he's "not 22 anymore." I believe that's how old Eddie Murphy was in the first movie (or at least, somewhere in his early twenties) so that was a fun little callback. Axel just smiles and replies, "They love me in Beverly Hills." 

Billy was supposed to pick up Axel at the airport, but he never showed up. Axel calls him from his rental car, but doesn't get an answer, so he goes to his office of Rosewood Investigations which is set in some hotel room (interesting place for a business, a little seedy if you ask me!). When he gets there, he notices the doors has been broken into and he walks in where he sees two guys rummaging around. Being who he is, Axel immediately acts like he's also supposed to be there. He asks them what's taking them so long and acts like he's looking for something. One guy asks who sent him and he (smartly) replies, "Who do you think?" These guys must be so dumb because one guy replies with "Beck?" and Axel replies (and this made me laugh), "No, LeBron James. Yes, Beck!" They're just giving him the answer that he needs! However, one of the guys sees a photo of Axel and Rosewood and points out to Axel that it's him (which he says is Wesley Snipes). Luckily before he was caught, he had ripped a page out of Rosewood's planner and surreptitiously put it in his pocket. 

Axel knows he's been made, but he's able to escape. Now there's a third bad guy and they're after him. This is when we get him wrecking havoc on Beverly Hills by driving a little scooter car through the posh shopping area while "Neutron Dance" is playing. At the end, the cart has flipped over and many tourists come up to him with their phones and start filming/taking pics of him. 

He ends up at his old stomping grounds of the Beverly Hills Police Department after he is arrested. He meets Detective Bobby Abbot (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) who has pulled his files and is quite familiar with his time in Beverly Hills. There is a funny moment after he mentions his time in BH in '94 as "not your finest hour." Obviously a nod to Beverly Hill Cop 3 just being a suck show. 

Axel sees a photo of Bobby that shows he was in the LAPD Air Support, meaning he used to be a pilot. This will come back later (and if you've seen the previews, you probably know). Bobby wants to know what Axel was doing in Rosewood's office (very similiar to the first movie when Taggart and Rosewood want to know why Axel was in Maitland's office), but Axel won't answer him, instead asking if he can talk to Taggart or get a phone call to call his lawyer, meaning his daughter. It takes three tries before he can finally get through to her without her hanging up on him. When he blurts out that Rosewood called him last night and if she can bail him out, he'll tell her everything. 

We get a brief scene of Axel reunited with Taggart and he asks him why he hasn't retired yet. He said he did (which is true, they mentioned it in the third movie how he retired and moved to Phoenix), but he said he got back together with his wife, Maureen, (I guess they were the Ross and Rachel of this franchise because they were always breaking up and getting back together) and apparently he moved back to Beverly Hills and now he's working again so he can be anywhere but home. Let's be honest, John Ashton wasn't in the third movie because he didn't like the script, but came back for this one. 

Taggart introduces Axel to Cade Grant (Kevin Bacon) who runs the "interdepartmental narcosis task force." When I first saw the preview for this movie I knew immediately that he was the bad guy, but it wasn't like they were trying to hide it. The discussion turns to Sam Enriquez and Taggart isn't happy that Axel's daughter is defending an assumed cop killer. 

Oh, yeah, we also find out that Jane and Bobby have a history. They used to date, but they broke up because she didn't want to date a cop. There's a really awkward moment where Axel asks them (after noticing their attitudes around each other) if they've had "intercourse" (yes, that's the word he uses). Like, dude, why would you ask your daughter that? At first, I felt a little bad that Jane was being so dismissive of him, but now I don't really blame her for not wanting him in her life! But what are the odds that those two would know each other? Yes, I suppose they do work in the same circle, but still. 

When leaving the police department, Axel asks Jane why Rosewood would be at the impound and she tells him that's where Copeland's car is and they go there to check it out. On the way there, Jane tells her dad that Sam's "just a kid who got talked into muling cocaine for his uncle", who is "some big dealer on the east side named Chalino." Axel doesn't think it makes sense that if Copeland worked for Chalino, why would Chalino kill him? 

When they arrive at the impound, Axel does what he does best and pretends to be someone else to get the information he needs. He tells the young man behind that counter that he's the "producer of the new Liam Neeson revenge thriller, Impound" (what a terrible name for a movie!) and that they're looking for a technical advisor. He sees a headshot of the guy on the wall and asks if he's an actor and the guy replies that he was in Jupiter Ascending which is the most random movie and one that I've never seen and don't know anyone who's ever seen it. Wanting to butter him up, Axel giddily tells him he loved him in that movie. Knowing that her father has never seen the movie, she asks him what it's about and he replies it's about Jupiter...ascending. It's so stupid, but funny. The dumb guy behind the counter is so happy he's being considered to help them with a new movie, he doesn't even pick up that Axel has never seen Jupiter Ascending and can't even tell his daughter the plot. (I certainly wouldn't know what it's about!) He quickly changes the subject back to the faux film he's working on and tells the guy "the movie starts off with Liam Neeson breaking into a police impound yard." The guy stops him to tell him they just had a break-in last night and Axel is mock shocked. He asks if they could have a look for "research" and are allowed access where they find Copeland's car and Axel quickly discovers a surveillance camera that somebody installed. The SD card is missing and he surmises that's what Rosewood was after. Janes says there's nothing about a camera in the car in the police report and thinks that's what they were looking for in Billy's office. 

Axel quickly realizes they're being followed and he uses his camera phone under Jane's car to discover it has a tracker. He pulls it off and they drive away where he places it on the back of a stopped bus. They soon find out the two guys that were in Rosewood's office are following them. Axel and Jane start following them now and they go to a swanky restaurant where the father and daughter will use their magic to get into the private club on the rooftop. There they see the two goons with Cade and when Axel asks what they were doing in Billy's office, he replies that Billy "stole a crucial piece of evidence" which he needs to recover to exonerate Copeland and that he "will do whatever it takes to get it back." Sounds pretty ominous to me! 

Axel checks out the home of the address he found in Rosewood's planner. He tells his daughter that there was a lot of security there "even for Beverly Hills" and that he saw the guys that were following them. They're in the car when they're having this discussing and lucky for them, Bobby is following them. I say lucky because Bobby pulls up next to a car and he hears one tattooed man say to another tattooed man to take out the people in the car ahead of them, which just so happens to be Axel and Jane. It's a good thing Bobby knows Spanish because that's the language the tattooed men are speaking. We next get a crazy moment that should have made national news, but only seems to make the local news: the two men get out of their car and start shooting at Axel and Jane who by now have gotten out of their car and are crouching down to hide from the gunmen. One of them sees Jane in a side mirror and is about to shoot her, but Bobby shoots him and the other guy. Luckily, no one is killed here except for the bad guys. We find out that they were part of a "cartel kill crew out of Adelanto." Ah! I knew it! They looked like guys who would work for Gustavo Fringe. 

Apparently, Rosewood had tried to put these guys away, but somehow it never happened and perhaps that's because Cade was also involved in their case. Taggart denies that Cade is dirty and Axel questions him if he's part of this. Bobby is suspended without pay for what happened and he accuses the chief of not wanting to solve the case. Now he, Axel, and Jane are the only three people to check into the case. Jane had done some research of the mansion that was heavily guarded and they find out it was bought with drug money. The house next door to that one is for sale so they decide to recruit Axel's old pal, Serge (Bronson Pinchot), who is friends with a real estate agent (who feels like she should be on The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills) and Bobby and Jane pretend to be a married couple who are interested in the house.  

We get some fun moments from Serge who seems to be completely the same at 60 as he was when he was in his 20s and 30s. When he pulls up in his convertible, he exclaims "I'm on an undercover mission with Ack-well Foley and I'm so happy!" 

At the house, we get another callback to their relationship when Axel asks how many bathrooms there are and when Serge tells him there are ten, Axel says "Get the f*** out of here!" and Serge (predictably) responds with "No, I cannot!" They're just giving the audience what they want.

While Bobby and Jane are being shown the house, Axel sneaks away to check out the shady house next door. There are lots of statues in the backyard that are very similar to the ones in the yard of the mansion in the first movie, so obvious a shoutout, but those statues just make the yard look cheap even though I'm sure they're very expensive. Of course, having lots of money doesn't mean you have good taste. We've all seen Trump's New York penthouse in The Apprentice. He sneaks into the garage and takes photos of the hood of a car parked in there. A camera catches him and one of Cade's minions calls Cade to tell him that Foley was at the house. 

Axel took photos of the car because he sees paint on it that must have come from Copeland's car and he found a device that's used to disrupt cell signals. Jane remembers how Sam had tried to call for help, but wasn't able to get service. They need to find the SD card and the only person who knows its whereabouts is Billy, but where's Billy? 

Axel and Bobby decide to talk to Chalino, Sam's uncle. They think he'll probably want to talk to them since Grant is trying to pin the murder on Chalino's nephew. Chalino's (Luiz Guzman) operations are in a bar-like establishment. Bobby says he's a little nervous since he knows there will be armed men everywhere and when he asks Axel if he's nervous, he replies that he's from Detroit and it will be just like going into Buffalo Wild Wings, heh. When they go inside and find Chalino singing karaoke (a half Spanish/half English "Man Eater"), he says, "This is nothing like Buffalo Wild Wings." They tell Chalino they're there because they know his nephew is being set up and is "about to go away for life for a murder he didn't commit." While pointing a gun at Bobby's head, Chalino wants them to give him a reason why he should trust them. Axel replies that his daughter is representing Sam and that the same guys who are trying to frame him almost took her out. Chalino agrees to work with them and tells them that Grant has dirty cops working for him, "protecting the cartel's interests." When ask why Grant killed Copeland, Chalino tells them "he was gonna go clean" and that he was talking to a PI that Axel realizes was Rosewood and when he asks about said PI, Chalino says "They caught him sniffing around the east basin of the port where they bring in the drugs." So now at least he knows Rosewood's last known whereabouts. I have to say, while people are concerned about Rosewood, they don't seem that concerned. 

When Axel and Bobby leave the bar and walk to their car, they are surrounded by Grant and his men. They have been obviously set up when Grant opens the trunk to reveal cocaine in a hidden spot. Both are held handcuffed in the country jail, but Axel, being Axel, manages to get them both to escape, but the only way out is on the roof where there's a helicopter...and remember, Bobby used to be a pilot for the LAPD Air Support. What he didn't tell Axel is that he doesn't fly anymore because he crashed the last helicopter he flew and now has PTSD from it. He must have forgotten how to fly because he does a terrible job. He's flying very close to the ground (like, he's level with the cars on the street, that's how low!) which just seems super dangerous. Cade shoots at the chopper and it ends up crash landing on a golf course. After listening to a couple of podcasts, I guess one of the golfers they see is from Happy Gilmore, but I've never seen that movie, so I didn't even realize that the first time I watched it. 

By this time, Taggart knows that Cade is behind this since he literally saw him shoot the helicopter. While Axel and Bobby are checking out the place where Billy last was and distract his captives to escape with him in a truck filled with statues that are full of cocaine, Jane is kidnapped when she gets into her car to drive home. Billy tells them he hid the SD card in his Rambo knife that's in his office and Axel calls Jane to let her know but Cade answer her phone and tells him to bring the SD card (by this time he already knows that Billy is with Axel) before he does something he "might regret" and to meet him at the Sunset Point Warehouse on Alameda in one hour. The audience clearly sees he's lying because he's at the mansion and Axel gets this confirmed when he calls Jeffrey to ask him to track Jane's phone. Billy thinks they should call for backup, but Bobby doesn't think that's a good idea since they're fugitives driving a truck full of cocaine (well, when you put it like that!). Axel sidesteps a police car that has a car pulled over on the side of the road and soon many cop cars are following the truck, but they soon lose their backup when the cars all crash into each other since Axel is driving so erratically. 

The truck crashes right through the front of the house which I'm sure you've seen if you've watched the trailer. I won't lie; it was a pretty cool moment. There's lots of gunfire as the bad guys are shooting at Axel, Bobby, and Billy. A few moments later, Taggart shows up and as he's pulling a gun out of the trunk, he's muttering, "That damn Foley! Here we go again." He's such a curmudgeon; I love it! Although, this guy is in his 70s; should he really be going into a house full of gunfire? When Billy does his "Drop your weapons!" routine, a clear shoutout from the first movie (and of course it doesn't work), Taggart just shakes his head and replies, "Some things never change." This is the first time we see Taggart and Rosewood together in this movie and it just dawned on me that we haven't seen them together since the end of the second movie since Taggart wasn't in the third movie. What a beautiful reunion! 

Axel spots Cade upstairs and makes his way to the second floor. We see that Jane has slipped out of her handcuff and we know that Axel taught her how to do that because they talked about it in an earlier scene. The guy watching her hears a noise and when he goes to check it out, this is when she breaks free of her restraints and smashes a vase over his head. 

Axel comes across Cade and they have a standoff. Axel tells him to put his gun down and Cade complies because he sees one of his men has a gun on Axel from behind. When Axel is about to get shot by that guy, we see him get shot by Jane who had taken the gun from the guy watching her. Cade shoots at Jane, but Axel throws himself in front of the bullet, which hits him in the front of his shoulder. Bobby arrives just in time to shoot Cade in the head. Of course, this whole sequence is done in slow motion. 

Axel is taken to the hospital, but he's going to be okay and now he and Jane are on good terms. The movie ends with a callback to the first one with Taggart and Rosewood in a parked car outside the hospital to make sure Axel doesn't leave (he had already snuck out to get some food at a nearby diner). They're arguing about something and Axel slips into the backseat and tells them they're the worst surveillance team in the world (he ain't lying!). 

The first BHC movie will always be the best, but I think this one is the next best. The third is just terrible and the second one has its fun moments, but is a bit of a hot mess and I felt like this one was more thought out and at least the storyline made a little more sense.