Most critics like it, and almost all of the praise goes to Eddie Murphy. The reviews describe his Axel Foley as the film’s whole reason for being: a star bluffing and improvising his way through Beverly Hills while a conventional cop plot ticks along underneath. Martin Brest gets modest credit for staying out of Murphy’s way and for giving supporting players room, with Variety singling out Judge Reinhold and Steven Berkoff.
The reservations cluster on the story. Several reviewers call the plotting conventional, and the two negative notices go further: Roger Ebert argues the film squanders a satirical premise on cop-show clichés and a tired cocaine plot, while Variety finds it turns too dramatic and only half delivers on the comedy. Eye for Film, revisiting it decades on, finds it broad, cheesy and dated. The spread is wide, from warm to dismissive, but even the dissenters agree the problem is the script, not the star.