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

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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.

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pretty good take. and i loved pryor, chase and martin as well.

maybe it's an age thing, maybe its a movie studio thing where they don't get the offers for those types of movies anymore.

all of those guys you mentioned all had great careers as well as made some shite movies but i think the ratio is more skewed to shitty movies for murphy.

i always forget pryor helped write "blazing saddles".