Axel Foley, while investigating a car theft ring, comes across something much bigger than that: the same men who killed his boss are running a counterfeit money ring out of a theme park in Los Angeles.
After the events of Beverly Hills Cop II (1987) and a failed attempt to bust a team of car thieves in a Detroit chop shop, Axel Foley, the unconventional Beverly Hills Cop (1984), returns to sunny Beverly Hills to track down a dangerous gang of killers. Before long, Axel sniffs out the criminals' hideout with the help of old friend Billy Rosewood. However, there is a catch. As the investigation leads them to the bustling Wonder World theme park, all that is left to do is to convince the public and the police that the park's impeccable chief of security is the mastermind behind a sinister operation. And the clock is ticking. How hard can it be?—Nick Riganas
One night in Detroit, Axel Foley (Eddie Murphy) plans to arrest a gang of car thieves who run a local chop shop. Unbeknownst to his boss, Inspector G. Douglas Todd (Gil Hill), Axel has canceled the SWAT, intending to raid the shop using only his team. Meanwhile, a group of men arrive at the chop shop to pick up a cube van that the car thieves had hijacked. The leader of the group confirms that the vehicle still contains its cargo, which consists of crates labelled as property of the U.S. government, then has his men execute the car thieves.
As the murderers are about to leave, Axel, unaware of what has happened inside, proceeds with his plan to enter the shop and quickly finds his team outgunned. Todd, arriving moments later, is fatally shot by the group's leader. As the perpetrators escapes in the cube van, an angry Foley gives chase in one of the partially disassembled cars from the shop, but is prevented from continuing the chase by Secret Service Agent Steve Fulbright (Stephen McHattie). Fulbright informs Axel that the killer must remain on the loose because the federal government is pursuing a larger scheme in which he is involved.
After Todd's funeral, Axel learns that several clues left behind by the killers point to Wonder World, a theme park in Beverly Hills, California owned by "Uncle" Dave Thorton (Alan Young). Axel arrives in Beverly Hills and reunites with his friend Billy Rosewood (Judge Reinhold), who has been promoted to "Deputy Director of Operations for Joint Systems Interdepartmental Operational Command" (DDO-JSIOC), and meets Billy's new partner, Jon Flint (Héctor Elizondo). It is revealed that John Taggart is now retired and is living in Phoenix, Arizona. Axel asks Flint to call his friend Ellis DeWald (Timothy Carhart), the head of Wonder World's park security, to let him know that he's coming to the park for his investigation.
Axel meets and befriends Janice Perkins (Theresa Randle) whilst touring the park's behind-the-scenes facilities. Later, he is spotted by security, shot at and attacked hand-to-hand. Foley retreats to the surface where he cuts in line to enter the Spider Ferris wheel ride. The guards accidentally jam the ride, placing two little kids' lives in danger. Axel rescues them and is subsequently taken to park manager Orrin Sanderson (John Saxon). When DeWald is called in to contest the claim that Axel was attacked by the security men without prior challenge, Axel immediately recognizes DeWald as Todd's killer, but Rosewood and Flint refuse to believe that claim because DeWald is keeping an impeccable public reputation.
However, Axel is later visited by Uncle Dave and Janice, who inform him that the Wonder World park's designer and Dave's close friend, Roger Fry, has mysteriously disappeared while inspecting the grounds two weeks ago, leaving only a letter with a cryptic message. He tries to heckle DeWald into revealing his criminal involvements, despite continued admonishments by Agent Fulbright, but DeWald proves too smooth to be caught in a mistake. When Axel later digs deeper into a closed-off section of the park, he finds out that DeWald and Sanderson run a counterfeiting ring that uses Wonder World as a front, and DeWald was at the chop shop in Detroit to get his hands on blank printing paper used for American currency. Axel later meets with Uncle Dave to ask him about further details to find a piece of viable evidence, and thereby discovers that Fry's warning letter is actually written on a sheet of the stolen mint paper. Before he can make use of that evidence, however, Uncle Dave is shot by DeWald, and Axel is framed for his shooting.
After getting away from DeWald and bringing Uncle Dave to the next hospital, Axel sets out to prove his innocence by storming the park, calling Rosewood and Flint to assist him. The resulting shootout kills DeWald's henchmen, and after a hand-to-hand fight Axel shoots and kills DeWald. Agent Fulbright appears to explain that he was wrong, but Axel realizes his actual involvement with the counterfeiter and shoots him during a brief struggle. Uncle Dave makes a full recovery, and he thanks Axel for his assistance by creating a new character for Wonder World in his honor, Axel Fox.
