Beverley Hills Cop I & II

The best part of this Beverley Hills Cop boxset? No Part III. Nope, here we have the two good ones, with Detroit cop Axel Foley on the case of various hoodlums and aristocrooks assisted by PC L.A. P.C.s Judge Reinhold and the other one (when you're 'the other one' to Judge Reinhold, you'd better pray you're a dog who witnessed a murder). Axel's various home-spun tricks of the trade, such as destroying a security system using a chewing gum wrapper, are ridiculous, but who cares? It's fun watching Eddie Murphy before the whole Norbit trainwreck further down the line, wisecracking away as he searches through crates, or hides in crates, or gets in a car and knocks over crates. Joking aside, Reinhold, John Ashton and Paul Reiser are decent bumbling sidekicks to the main man Murphy, and the baddies (Stephen Berkoff, Jurgen Prochnow and Brigitte Nielsen) are downright European. A pound? Bargain. [Alec McLeod]