Beverly Hills Cop, Coming to America, Trading Places, 48 hrs...

after he got busted trying to frick a tranny, he started making kids movies mostly

he's expanded it somewhat (that heist movie, for example), but this happens with actors often

Life was his last funny movie. Coincidentally Life was Martin Lawrence's last funny movie as well.

Realistically, Eddie Murphy was a cross between Richard Pryor and Steve Martin, coming slightly behind their peak stand-up years, and probably a better actor in his own right than either.

Richard had a fairly narrow range where he could be funny. He also rarely stretched outside of his comfort zone (although he proved on network television during the 70s that, even severely caught up in drug abuse he could be both funny and clean).

Martin was great, early on, then faded down the stretch as an actor. He also, generally needed a strong support cast (although he was the mule in The Jerk).

I think with a funny lead, it runs out - and it runs out more quickly than for a dramatic or action lead = it ran out for Chevy (more or less after Fletch), it ran out for Martin (more or less after Planes, Trains and Automobiles, although he tried like hell with L.A. Story and Father of the Bride).

Murphy tried to hard to avoid stereotyping, and I think that hurt him. Once he started cashing in with the kid-oriented films, he was probably done for the older generation. Also, when he stopped doing stand-up, he probably started losing his timing edge right there - in comedy, timing is everything.

Just my $0.02.

Unpopular opinion: Eddie Murphy is wildly overrated as a standup.

Murphy is a great comedic actor, one of the best, but he's reliant on the quality of his writing room. And once he stopped relying on his writers and started thinking he was a great writer himself... bad things happened. He's also kinda famous for being difficult to work with, which made his fall more rapid, as people weren't really willing to help him out in the business. There was some people enjoying his fall.