At the time of its release Beverly Hills Cop was the highest grossing comedy of all time, so it works out perfectly that its first sequel would be directed and produced by the juggernaut Hollywood crowd-pleasers Don Simpson and Jerry Bruckheimer (and directed by none less than Tony Scott). The formula is exactly the same (and man I really mean exactly), although it follows all of the usual rules of an action sequel, which state that it must have a much bigger budget (Axel still does his police work by his own rules, only this time he uses precinct money to drive around in a Ferrari), more deaths, faster and funnier jokes (it clearly shoots for this one, anyway), and at least one more 6-foot platinum blonde. <br /><br />Let's take a little trip, shall we? Beverly Hills Cop 2 was released in May of 1987, and so came just after things like Top Gun, Police Academy 3, The Color of Money, To Live and Die in L.A. (which was sort of an anti-buddy cop movie with a mean streak that is clearly reflected in Cop 2), Eddie Murphy's own The Golden Child, and the original Lethal Weapon, which was released just a few months earlier and may have been sharing theaters with it. Needless to say, there was no shortage of police movies and whatnot, and no time is wasted in attempting to stand out from the crowd.<br /><br />The movie starts with a violent robbery pulled off in broad daylight by a highly organized group of criminals headed by the statuesque Bridgette Nielsen, who plays the curiously named Karla Fry. She's involved with a ruthless organized crime syndicate that is running firearms to Central America, and when police chief Bogomil is gunned down, Foley decides he's going to head on back to southern California to solve the case himself again. <br /><br />Everyone is friends now after the events of the first movie. Taggart and Rosewood are no longer spying on Axel but have all become good friends, as they have with Bogomil, who sided with them against the Commissioner or Chief or Mayor or whatever at the end of the last movie. Unfortunately, the new police chief is a total jerkoff and has been firing everyone in sight and replacing them with all of his own people, so once again Taggart and Rosewood and Foley are forced to go against direct orders in order to do what needs to be done.<br /><br />The movie has been almost unanimously slammed by critics, and I would certainly hesitate to say that it's as bad as all that. In more recent years I have not always been the biggest fans of people like Jerry Bruckeimer (the mega-producer who we have to thank for such highly polished cheesefests as Armageddon and Gone in 60 Seconds and Pearl Harbor, not that he hasn't had his better movies), but if you are just looking for a fun popcorn action flick, you could certainly do worse than this one.<br /><br />If nothing else, it was great fun picking out the hilarious 80s pop culture references, some of which were light-hearted jabs at the competition, such as the posters for First Blood Part II and Rambo in Rosewood's "stress-free" apartment, and maybe my favorite, Bridgette Nielsen's (Stallone's wife at the time) earrings, which were these bizarre little metallic arrows that made her look like a Klingon. <br /><br />It's true that some of the jokes and situations are a little too unoriginal, even only in the first sequel, such as Foley's remarkable ability to come up with crazy stories on the spot (although the best one is where he pretends to be a gay prostitute to get into a ritzy club and harass the bad guy) and his loud-mouthed streams profanity. But again, not necessarily something that I would criticize the movie for just for being there. It gets a little cheesy at times though, like when he gets into the bad guys' office by pretending to be a delivery boy delivering highly unstable plutonium capsules in - get this - a brown paper bag, but overall it stays in the same vein as the original and may even be better in a lot of ways.