A fall from greatness is a sad thing to witness, and none is sadder than the fall witnessed in "Beverly Hills Cop II".<br /><br />Eddie Murphy is back as Axel Foley and you can have him. He's back in Beverly Hills to find the truth behind the shooting of Capt. Bogomil (Ronny Cox). This consists of him insulting and belittling nearly every single person who comes across his field of vision in a loud, shrill and usually un-funny way. Even Dets. Taggart (Ashton) and Rosewood (Reinhold) don't get away unscathed, even as they work with Axel once more.<br /><br />Of course, the biggest joke in this movie is Eddie himself; he is so full of himself here and believes, even when he is being a jerk, he's in the right. It's amazing: in this single film alone, he takes bland pot shots at blue collar workers, receptionists, tall blonde women (Nielsen), German-accented bad guys (Prochnow), overbearing cops (Garfield, Hill, Reiser) weaselly little front men (Stockwell, looking suspiciously like his Dr. Yueh character from 1984's "Dune"), Gerald Ford and Hugh Hefner! Things are made worse when you realize that NO ONE could ever get away with the things Murphy does here. Only in his little world he has created for himself. <br /><br />Nobody does themselves any favors by appearing in this movie. And the cameos by people with talent (Reiser, Chris Rock, Gilbert Gottfried) are so short that you expect Murphy felt himself being up-staged and cut them himself. Hey, it could happen. <br /><br />And there is SO much misogyny running through this flick that you expect Gloria Steinem could use this whole film as an indictment against Hollywood in general. And WIN.<br /><br />What a waste. The only good scene is the obviously improvised scene where Murphy introduces himself as Johnny Wishbone from the Island of St. Croix. And that's about it. Not much for action fans here, either.<br /><br />Two stars. One for the good will left over from the original and the fact that Sylvester Stallone, original choice for Axel Foley, didn't take this role. Just imagine what HE would have done to "Beverly Hills Cop II".<br /><br />Of course, you could always watch "Cobra"....