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Eddie Murphy is an enigma. It would seem that he had turned a corner dramatically with a powerful and Academy Award-nominated turn in Dreamgirls. After years of crap sequels, uninspired action-comedy pictures (like Showtime or I Spy), and high-profile, big-budget atrocities (like The Adventures of Pluto Nash) it looked as if the man would be a little more choosey. A quick look at his IMDb says a completely different story. He currently has five films in some form of production and none of them seem interesting. There was rumor of a new Nutty Professor installment, as well.

What brings us here today, though, is the script review for Beverly Hills Cop 4. Latino Review got their hands on the storyline and, in a nutshell, it doesn’t sound too good. The Brett Ratner-directed film scheduled for release in 2010 seems to both rely on the basics, yet completely ignores what made the first Beverly Hills Cop watchable.

For instance, Axel Foley is now a non-stop action machine who apparently has no sense of humor. Kellvin Chavez of LR writes “Axel Foley has no funny lines. I don’t know if (screenwriters Michael) Brandt and (Derek) Haas wrote the character unfunny to give Eddie room to ad lib or if they just think having him drop f-bombs every third line is the height of laughs, but Axel Foley is pretty much a Terminator in this movie.”

And what really pisses me off is that the movie opens with the death of Billy Rosewood (played in the original trilogy by Judge Reinhold). Looking like an apparent suicide, Axel doesn’t believe that fun-loving, good cop Billy would ever take his own life, so he comes back to L.A. to investigate. You’re going to have a Beverly Hills Cop movie with no Judge Reinhold? I’d argue that Reinhold’s performance in the first movie is a large percentage of what makes it endearing. Rosewood’s sidekick Taggart (played by John Ashton) I could live without, but this film needs Judge Reinhold.

Speaking of Judge Reinhold, doesn’t anyone else think this guy should be starring in a sitcom on one of the big networks. He’s a likable dude from the ’80s. Jon Cryer has a TV show. Judge Reinhold should get one, too. Even if it was a spin-off from Arrested Development where Judge plays a reality TV show judge named Judge Reinhold, I would watch that.

I’d watch that over the uninspired fecal matter Eddie Murphy attaches his name to these days.