Lethal Weapon 2 (1989)

Director: Richard Donner

Cast: Mel Gibson, Danny Glover, Joe Pesci, Joss Ackland

Have I Seen it Before: Again, sure.

Did I Like It: I almost want to take back my retroactive ambivalence about <Lethal Weapon (1987)>. There were instances—indeed, long stretches—where I was less distracted by how awful Mel Gibson has proven himself to be.

My immediate instinct is to to say that there’s so much Three Stooges shtick jammed into the film that I can’t help but be annoyed at the movie for an entirely different set of Gibson’s predilections… But that doesn’t cover it: I actually found myself liking the film.

Part of that is that this feels like a more personal story for Riggs, if not necessarily Murtaugh (Glover). The previously unseen unravelling of his life now fuels part of the plot. While the whole “I’m the villain and the cause of all your problems” has been done to death here (and, indeed, is a reprise in the great summer of 1989 after Batman (1989) pulled the same trick), it does give some narrative fuel to Riggs’ Riggsiness, whereas in the last film it just felt like a randomly selected character trait to serve his mismatched pairing with Murtaugh.

Also, the conceit behind the film is somewhat ingenious in its simplicity. What is an Action Movie Cop (tm) to do when the evil crime lords also have diplomatic immunity. Granted, it could have easily been a plot in a Robocop film, would have been right at home creating issues for John McClane in a Die Hard sequel, or even any number of Schwarzenegger or Stallone characters. But Riggs and Murtaugh got there first, so they get the points… If points were something we were keeping track of in 1980s action films.

Lethal Weapon (1987)

Director: Richard Donner

Cast: Mel Gibson, Danny Glover, Mitchell Ryan, Gary Busey

Have I Seen it Before: Oh, sure.

Did I Like It: Let’s reckon with a strange question before I get into any qualities of the movie. Why is there so much sturm und drang as to whether or not Die Hard (1988) is a Christmas movie (it, is by the way, but that’s a discussion for another review), when this movie gets hardly a peep?

I wonder if it is mostly that by the time that these silly movie debates held on the internet became a thing, Mel Gibson as one of the all-time leading men had firmly become a thing of the past.

And that’s the thing I’m most struck by here. We’re supposed to like Mel Gibson. Feel sorry for him. Even with this being the ur of the modern buddy action movie, it’s hard to separate Mel Gibson the man from Martin Riggs the character. All of that manic energy will soon be harnessed into something pretty ugly. Makes it difficult to have a good time, and isn’t that the point of a movie like Lethal Weapon?

I was struck recently by reading that Richard Donner’s first choice for Riggs was his Superman (1978) discovery, Christopher Reeve. I have a hard time imagining that, as even when Reeve played slightly unhinged and despicable, he had a gentleness that couldn’t fully be erased. That he went ahead and made Superman IV - The Quest for Peace (1987) was probably the wrong move for him, but I probably would have been able to more fully dwell on the action, the chemistry between Riggs and Murtaugh, and Donner’s direction.

Now, it all feels a bit too weird for words. No one knows the fate of the long-threatened Lethal Finale now that Donner has passed on, but I can’t help but imagine that one being really weird.