YMMV / Beverly Hills Cop III

• Complete Monster: Ellis DeWald is a former cop turned head of security of the Wonder World theme park, using it as a means to hide his counterfeit money operation, murdering the theme park's designer once the latter starts learning of his illegal operation. Ellis starts by ordering his men to kill every mechanic in a chop shop and murders the boss of Axel Foley. When one of his goons gets shot during a car chase, Ellis does nothing but kick him off the van to be run over by a car and killed. Ellis shows no concerns when endangering the lives of children and families, such as when he sends his men to kill Axel by sabotaging a theme park ride that nearly has two children killed. Near the climax of the film, Ellis holds the protagonist's Love Interest hostage and threatens to kill her unless Axel gives him the paper they use to print the counterfeit money, but plans to kill them either way.
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • In 1989, on The Arsenio Hall Show, Eddie Murphy said, "[Landis] has a better chance of working again with Vic Morrow than he does with me." Guess who directed this film?
  • This wasn't the last time a critically panned work is associated with the name "Wonderworld".
• Moral Event Horizon: DeWald shooting Uncle Dave to frame Axel.
• Padding: Axel saving a couple kids from a malfunctioning ride. The scene obviously only exists because this section was going too long without an action scene.
• Sequelitis: In large part thanks to the absences of Taggart, Bogomil and Friedman, as well as Axel seemingly dropping a good bit of his trademark snark.
• Special Effects Failure: When Axel runs over Taddeo (the henchman DeWald shoves out), Taddeo turns into the world's fakest-looking dummy.
• Took the Bad Film Seriously: John Landis accepted to direct even if he thought the script was weak by thinking Eddie Murphy would make it work. Unfortunadely, Murphy did not go where Landis expected, with a serious performance lacking the snark and ad-libs that made the other two such beloved comedies.

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