Continuing my Halloween marathon, next up is Beverly Hills Cop 2.  Of course it was a no-brainer for Paramount to greenlight a sequel when the first one made $250 – 300 million.  The one big difference was the change in directors from Martin Brest to Tony Scott.  After watching the first movie and the interviews, I am in firm belief that BHC would have not performed as well with a different director. Tony Scott was coming off of Top Gun, another smash for Paramount.

Cop 2 finds Eddie Murphy heading back to Beverly Hills to investigate the shooting of one of his buddies from the first movie.  Again, the story is fairly straight-forward with no twists.  Unfortunately, it also lacks the depth the first movie had, as well as some of the comedy.  In the DVD interviews, even Tony Scott admits that he was looking to film a straight-up action movie versus a comedy with action.  It is these choices that create a movie that does not completely live up to fan expectations.  As a matter of fact, I still remember the conversation in AP Calculus that I had with Mike Harvey where he blasted the movie for phoning it in and turning out a “piece of crap” compared to the first one.  While I did not enjoy it as much as the first one, I felt it was still decent enough entertainment.

Similar to the BHC DVD, this disc featured interviews and a trailer.

My advice:  decent enough to watch, but I would not choose it over the first…