10 Surprisingly Good Movie Sequels NOBODY Saw Coming
2. Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F
It's tough to have anything but basement-low expectations where belated comedy sequels are concerned, and because the three-decade wait for the fourth Beverly Hills Cop film wasn't sus enough, it also had to contend with the previous film being, well, terrible.
Beverly Hills Cop III stunk enough that most fans basically accepted that it killed the franchise dead, and it was tough to take the many bungled attempts to develop a fourth film seriously.
That it finally got made as a direct-to-Netflix romp, then, didn't exactly cool the white-hot scepticism surrounding the project, which had strong Dumb and Dumber To/Zoolander 2/Coming 2 America vibes about it.
But what a pleasant surprise it was that the recently released Beverly Hills Cop: Axel was actually... pretty good.
No, it's not going to knock anyone's socks off and doesn't touch the firecracker thrills of the first two movies, but Eddie Murphy proved he hasn't missed a step, the returning supporting cast was great - especially John Ashton's Taggart - and it avoided an impressive number of the most tired, groan-worthy legacy sequel tropes.
For a sequel few expected much from, for Beverly Hills Cop 4 to be a solidly respectable entry into the franchise is basically miraculous.