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When news broke of Brett Ratner’s plan to helm a fourth installment of the Beverly Hills Cop series the film community reacted with a giant upsurge of vomit. Few people understood why the Auteur of Crappiness felt the Eddie Murphy series needed a reboot. Even fewer understood how the star could possibly return to Axel Foley given the downturn into family friendly slop that’s afflicted his recent career (Dreamgirls notwithstanding).

Yet word comes via MTV News that Ratner hears you, angry film fans, and that the movie “will be a hard R,” not some PG-13 nicety. Not only that, he promises a reinvention of the series akin to what Rob Zombie recently did with Halloween.

“We’re not going to call it 4,” Ratner says. “It will be a new Beverly Hills Cop.” He plans to “reintroduce it to a contemporary audience [and] take the best of the first two films and put it into the new one.”

Unfortunately, that does little to resolve the other big question surrounding the project: whether Murphy’s up to the challenge. He hasn’t headlined an R rated hit in ages and after leaving Axel behind he’s had his share of major flops (The Adventures of Pluto Nash).

How do you feel about the project? Is there any reason for optimism?