After decades away, I watched Lethal Weapon 2 again. What did this recent viewing reveal?
Lethal Weapon 2 kind of sucks, man. Two main issues drive this conclusion.
Shut Up Already…
The constant yelling and bickering between Riggs and Murtaugh is like watching Frank and Estelle Constanza on Seinfeld. It grows tedious to endure.
How they landed on this as a good decision is a mystery. The first Lethal Weapon is about a strait-laced cop who gets partnered with a reckless, suicidal cop. Murtaugh wants to make it through the day alive as boringly as possible. Riggs is perfectly fine with getting killed in the line of duty. Some comedy exists in this dynamic, but it isn’t forced to the forefront.
Lethal Weapon 2 forces the comedy to the forefront like a parent forcing a fat child into sports. As a result, the comedy ends up forced. I haven’t watched someone trying this hard to be funny since a Dane Cook comedy special.
Allow Me To Demonstrate…
A typical Riggs/Murtaugh interaction in Lethal Weapon 2 goes like this:
Murtaugh: I want to eat a sandwich.
Riggs: Let’s get tacos.
Murtaugh: Tacos give me indigestion.
Riggs: Yeahbuttheysuredotastegood.
Murtaugh (muttering to self): Just want a sandwich. A nice sandwich, so I can sleep tonight without acid reflux. A man should be able to eat a sandwich if he wants.
Riggs (grabs wheel of car): There’s a Taco Johns!
Murtaugh: WHAT ARE YOU DOING!?
Riggs: I’mgettingtacosman!
Murtaugh: WATCH OUT! THERE’S A CAR!
Riggs: WELL, HOW AM I SUPPOSED TO SEE THE CAR WITH THESE DIRTY WINDOWS?
Murtaugh: THE WINDOWS ARE DIRTY BECAUSE YOU DIDN’T CLEAN THEM WHEN WE GOT GAS!
Riggs: WELL, YOU DIDN’T TELL ME TO CLEAN THEM!
[Car careens into Taco Johns and ends up perfectly parked, rocking on its springs.]
Murtaugh: My wife is going to kill me.
Riggs: Yeah, but if you eat enough tacos, the cholesterol might get you first.
Leo Getz: I want McDonalds instead.
Murtaugh and Riggs turn around and say in unison: SHUT UP, LEO!
Take It Down A Notch, Riggs…
The second issue that makes Lethal Weapon 2 suck is that is ruins the character of Riggs. Part of this is the writing. Part of it is Gibson’s performance.
In Lethal Weapon, Riggs is a man broken by the death of his wife. He has become a depressed monk. He lives in his crappy trailer, drinks beer, and watches The Three Stooges. The only time he feels alive is when he is trying to die. This makes him interesting and sympathetic.
In Lethal Weapon 2, suddenly Riggs is head-over-heels for Patsy Kensit, who was a thing for a few minutes in the early 1990s, after meeting her for ten seconds. He then proceeds to act like a moony junior-high kid with a crush on his lab partner.
The Riggs setup in Lethal Weapon would not behave like that. That Riggs would not get over his wife for a long, long time.
Riggs’s relationship with Kensit also undermines the fact that he runs across the guy who killed his wife. Why should we care that Riggs gets to avenge his wife? She obviously isn’t that important to him if he can fall hopelessly in love with Kensit in two scenes.
And don’t even get me started on the stupid coincidence of Rigg’s wife being killed by the very South Africans he is investigating…
Seriously, Take It Down A Notch, Riggs…
Watching Lethal Weapon 2 makes one wonder if Gibson was coked out of his gourd during the filming. I can honestly see him drinking a twelve-pack a day of soda in this film. He certainly appeared hopped up on caffeine and sugar with his bug-eyed, hyper-performance.
It sticks out most when he pulls down the stilt house with his truck. As the house falls down, Gibson gets out of the truck and starts jumping around and pumping his fist like a pre-teen at a Taylor Swift concert.
Riggs is a professional killer. He has been since he was 19, when he did a guy in Laos from a thousand yards out, a rifle shot in high wind. Maybe eight or even ten guys in the world could have made that shot. It’s the only thing he was ever good at…
Do you think that Riggs jumped around like a moron after he made that shot?
Then the crowning silliness in that scene is when Murtaugh and Leo get there, Riggs is reclining on the hood of his pickup like a car show model.
Again, when an actor makes a decision like that, you have to wonder how many Cokes they had beforehand.
Lethal Weapon Phew
There, it is off my chest. I feel cleansed. Lethal Weapon 2 is considered a great action movie, and I don’t like it. Granted, it is maybe not as bad as Lethal Weapon 3. I honestly think I have only watched that movie a single time. Mostly, all I remember from Lethal Weapon 3 is Gibson’s huge hair.
As for Lethal Weapon 4, I can watch that one despite some wonkiness. I enjoy Jet Li in it. He brings a freshness to the franchise that is, frankly, a delight after parts two and three.
Meanwhile, the first Lethal Weapon is a stone-cold classic. Any person who doesn’t like that one should be branded an infidel and banished to the wasteland.
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