Anthony Perrotta

As a fan of the franchise I thought I’d rewatch them all since the newest installment is about to come out in about a week. The first two were just as good as I remembered and hold up pretty well the decades later. I couldn’t really remember the third one but figured it would be more of the same classic late 80s early 90s style but I’m dumbstruck by how bad it is. Right off the bat the tone is off in every way from the dialogue and performances to cinematography and editing. They really made it into this slapstick schlock that may as well have a slide whistle sound effect whenever somebody gets shot. Detroit doesn’t seem gritty at all and the natural template opening of the first two films, Axel is undercover and talking fast, is replaced by the man explaining his detailed plan of attack on a chop shop with, again completely divorced from the spirit of the original films, his bosses blessing and a pat on the back. The character is supposed to be a loose cannon, fly by the seat of his pants, don’t ask for permission when you can ask for forgiveness later, we don’t need no backup cop and now he seems to be absolutely none of those things. So his boss gets shot and no one including Axel is torn up or even slightly bothered by the fact that everything went wrong in this operation because Axel decided he didn’t need the SWAT teams assistance even though his boss had ordered them to help out and Axel cancelled them. Of course there’s a tie in to Beverly Hills so he heads west. Rosewood is now a sergeant in charge of a bureaucracy which he seems to love and we find out Taggert is retired. There’s a new detective they use as his replacement in the film played by Hector Elizando and something seems off which makes me immediately think that the reason Taggert isn’t there is because they wanted a dirty cop angle or something similar but it wouldn’t fit Taggerts established character. Axel ends up at Wonder World which is supposed to be a play on Disney. It actually looks as if they build a giant Disney like theme park in the establishing shots. Axel makes his way in after some mindnumbing dialogue, sees one of the perps from the Detroit operation and easily follows him into the bowels of the entire operation through an unlocked door marked “corporate offices”. He meets a woman security lady, gets in a shootout and then for some reason after escaping instead of blending in with the crowd decides to get on a Ferris wheel type ride and literally calls attention to himself purposely to the guys who were just shooting at him who are the security personnel. The head security guy decides to pull the levers frantically to stop the ride that Axel is literally trapped on with no where to run and of course break it. Of course we see all the gears and pulleys break and you guessed it some kids are gonna fall! So Axel has to do this bizzare jump from cage to cage to save them somehow finding a rope along the way. Half the shots of the sequence are people looking bored as they watch it all unfold. Thats about 35 minutes worth and I cannot continue. My suggestion is to skip this one.

How any human is giving this movie a good rating is beyond me. It’s lacking in so many ways. Plot- The entire premise and main character make zero sense. A nerdy socially awkward high school teacher wears glasses and shops at Sears yet he’s a very handsome fit guy with an uncannily amazing skill set. He also works part time for the police but is a civilian. The cops decide to make him go undercover as a hit man because I guess the only undercover cop was a loose cannon and was put on suspension. Suddenly he transforms into this confident quick witted master of disguise and he’s now going to be an undercover cop with zero training. Cue the obligatory sidekicks for “comic effect” to add pointless commentary throughout his missions. After meeting with a bunch of potential clients over three months and putting them all in jail he meets one who’s attractive so he falls for her. That’s as far as I got and I’m surprised I made it that far. It would make sense to have a highly competent hit man pose as an introvert who’s a nerd but it makes zero sense the other way around. If he has so much confidence, style, and charisma that he can easily tap into on demand than why is his default the total lack of all of those qualities? This man does not exist in the world and just reads as fake. He’s kind, smart, compassionate, handsome but doesn’t know it, and even gets along with his pregnant ex who he calls his best friend but lurking beneath all that he has strength, courage, is highly competent, and is smooth as silk. The casting felt like it was done by whomever casts Hallmark movies.