Review for Beverly Hills Cop

Introduction

Today’s quickie Blu-ray double-dip review will be a little quickie-er than most, as for Beverly Hills Cop, it seems that all Paramount have done is transfer the DVD content onto the Blu-ray disc. There’s nothing new to see here on one of their biggest selling eighties movies. Still, the whole point of buying movies on disc is the movie, not the extras, so as long as Beverly Hills Cop gets a worthy upgrade to HD resolution, it shouldn’t matter that the extras are all recycled from the 13 year-old DVD and are in SD. As my love for the film hasn’t diminished in the 30 years since I first saw it... 30 years... Jesus Christ! Yeah... well, here’s a link to that DVD review.

Axel Foley is a Detroit cop who heads to Beverly Hills, Los Angeles to track down the killer of his best friend. His maverick style of policing is out of place in Beverly Hills, especially when the first thing that he does is get thrown out of respected businessman Victor Maitland’s office, through the window. It becomes the by-the-book Beverly Hill Police Department’s mission to see that Detective Foley ‘enjoys’ his vacation without it turning into a busman’s holiday, so not only does Axel have to find his friend’s murderer, he has to stay one step ahead of Beverly Hills cops Taggart and Rosewood.

Picture

It’s better than the DVD. I kept reminding myself of that while I was watching the film last night, as it’s true. The 1.78:1 widescreen 1080p transfer is a significant improvement over the DVD, in the native frame rate, with richer, more consistent colours, and a lot more in the way of detail. In my little game of spotting things that I’d never seen on the DVD, I was tickled to note that there was a DeLorean parked outside Victor Maitland’s mansion. Never saw that before.

But really this Blu-ray just isn’t good enough. The transfer is soft, generally lacking in the level of detail that you’d expect in HD, and has seen some post-processing, probably noise reduction. You can see it skin-tones most of all, prone to smearing at the best of times, and during the more dusty moments in the film, detail can be lost completely. I say probably noise reduction, because there are some moments in the film, especially at the start, that it looks deluged in film grain, the kind of thing that DNR is supposed to diminish. There’s also some shimmer on fine detail, such as the truck’s radiator during the opening chase sequence, which I haven’t seen on Blu-ray too often. It’s a flat presentation, where shadow detail isn’t great, and with a bit of black crush, blown whites feel to it.

But it’s better than the DVD.

Sound

You have the choice between DTS-HD MA 5.1 Surround English, DD 5.1 Spanish and Portuguese, and DD 2.0 Surround French, with subtitles in those languages. It’s not a spectacular surround effort, as you might expect from a film made in the mid eighties. It pretty much recreates the original stereo experience, with most of the action and dialogue kept at the front, with the surrounds really just called on slightly for the music. It’s a great soundtrack too, one of my favourites, and it certainly sounds great in the lossless format. The dialogue is clear throughout as well, and the action certainly hits with enough impact.

Extras

One disc in a Blu-ray Amaray and the disc boots up to a static menu. Pause the film during playback, or FF or REW, and the progress bar pops up.

They may have changed the names of the featurettes slightly, but they are the same extra features that were on the DVD.

You get the Audio Commentary from Martin Brest.

Beverly Hills Cop – The Phenomenon Begins (29:11) is the Cast & Crew Interviews featurette on the DVD.

A Glimpse Inside The Casting Process (9:37) = Casting Beverly Hills Cop.

The Music Of Beverly Hills Cop (7:49) is missing the ‘Cop’ on the DVD.

The Location Map is the same, and this time the Theatrical Trailer, alone of all the extras is in HD.

Conclusion

This film will never disappoint me. I love Beverly Hills Cop, and have since I first saw it. It’s got the balance between action and comedy just right, and it’s rich with great characters, memorable moments. It feels just as fresh and entertaining now as it did back in the eighties, when it was one of the biggest box office smashes of the decade.

Paramount have apparently forgotten that though, as to them, it’s just another back catalogue title. The film doesn’t disappoint, but the disc most certainly does. They’ve just bunged the movie onto the disc, with little or no restoration, but with plenty of post-processing and it doesn’t look good at all. There’s also nothing new in the way of extra features, and considering that last year was its anniversary, the chance to do something special has probably been missed. Thankfully it sounds great, putting that fantastic music soundtrack to excellent use.

Just keep reminding yourself that it’s better than the DVD, and it will do until Beverly Hills Cop gets the Blu-ray treatment it deserves.