martynmccarthy1965

The film opens with promise, considering it is billed as a horror movie. We are greeted with a blood-soaked appartment with 3 victims still lying in the aftermath of a savage crime. Visual effects and direction here are faultless. It is a pity the low budget made the police crime scene investigation look a bit too cheap ~ Hardly CSI Seattle. The police presance throughout is lacking and often a bit to "wooden".

The next scenes are the "Meet the main characters" scenes, and it's the old cliche of American teenage friends, disappearing off all by themselves to have a wild party full of Music, Booze, Sex, but this time includes the use of hard drugs. The "Cabin In The Woods" is actually a large house on a private island that is conveniantly owned by one of the teenagers parents. Another old horror flick cliche: Their cellphones don't work. Sadly this is where the film drags on, dwelling on the party far longer than is necessary, whilst the would be more interesting story, that of people being detained whilst being forced into taking a superdrug, the one that turns our happy campers into zombies, is reduced to an all to brief sideshow. This does not allow any depth of character in the bad guy to develop and as such his importance to the story is diminished, even when he is supported by two superb performances of a couple who are emotionally attached, the two most prominent of the prisoners that we get to see.

The movie eventually jumps into life, turning into a standard hack and slash affair. To be fair to the cast they deliver good performances in the fight scenes, unfortunately the camera angles make the whole visual effect very jumpy and disjointed. The fact that the film rushes the fight scenes, and rushes from one fight scene to the next to get them all in, adds to the jumpy feel of this part of the movie. If they had cut the party scenes down and added to the fight scenes, a better result would have ensued.

The ending is well surprising. What was the movie meant to be? An anti-drugs polemic? It fails on that. Horror movie buffs are accustomed to far worse ways to go than taking a bit of powder. It is Canadian Left-Wing produced, so why not make the bad guy a Right-Wing Republican Senator? That may please the American Left but will surely infuriate the American Right. When it comes to it's role as being a piece of Canadian/American Left Wing propaganda, I myself being a British subject wanting not to interfere with American politics here, I must say that I cannot possibly comment.

Eddie Murphy reprises his role as Axel Foley, a rule-bending, maverick cop from Detroit, who this time absconds from his duties there to use his unique talents in tracking down the perpetrators who are beind the shooting of his friend Captain Bogamil. He is once again aided by his two other friends from the first film, Detectives Rosewood and Taggart, their own efforts being hindered by an incompetant and obnoxious supperior officer.

Co-written and produced by Murphy, this affair turns into more of a showcase of Murphy, whose character dominates the plot more than in the original. In doing so this pushes Reinhold and Ashton a bit further out of the limelight, giving the movie less of a sparkle than the first film. It is only towards the end of the movie that Reinhold has the opportunity to deliver some of his better material, and it is in remarkable shift in character from his original image. It works well, but arrives a bit too late in the film to develop further.

Despite the cliches that pervade the film, it is still remains a fast paced, funny and thoroughly entertaining film. Brigette Neilsen is a commendable femme fatale. Note the tongue-in-cheek swipes at other movies popular during the era (1980s), and at her man ~ Sylvester Stallone.

Like the first film there is a bit of 80s naughtiness. Strip clubs appear in many cops & robbers genre films throughout the era. Whereas many of the performances in such movies are often very brief and very bland, if you don't mind such entertainment, the late Teal Roberts delivers a gutsy performance on the pole dance.

It was a stroke of luck that Sylvester Stallone, and considerable others, decided to drop out of the project. This left the road clear for Eddie Murphy to deliver his greatest performance as one of the most charismatic characters of the 1980s, Axel Foley. A rule twisting maverick cop from Detroit following the trail of clues in pursuing a killer to, and in and around Beverly Hills, and colliding head on with the etiquette behaviour one is expected to maintain in such an elite district.

Turning what was originally to be a serious movie thriller into a less serious comedy movie was also a stroke of genious. It afforded Eddie Murphy the chance to utilise his is already respected comedy skills to great effect, making him one the most bankable A-list stars of the era.

A finely paced plot, funny and thoroughly enertaining.