As much as Lethal Weapon may have stepped outside its genre trappings to strike an unexpected chord, its sequel was the film that gave the series the legs it needed to continue onward and upward. While it still plumbs some dark, painful subject matter for its lead characters, Lethal Weapon 2 skews lighter by treating the Murtaugh-Riggs dynamic as the stuff of fruitful comedy, an approach intensified by the slightly annoying, but still faithfully endearing, Leo Getz character, whom Joe Pesci makes all his own.
But it's the supreme comfort of Mel Gibson and Danny Glover, with both each other and the script that rockets this to the top of buddy movies to such an extent that it became ripe for parody. The director again proves his command of this material with a handful of memorable scenes, and especially his use of Gibson in his trademark "lethal weapon" scenes, which coined the franchise title. Even though Gibson is a lot less depressed in this film you still completely believe him as a guy that has nothing to lose.
It's fair to say that this is Gibson's movie, because it's written that way. Some of Riggs' back story is filled in and he even gets a love interest in the slender form of Patsy Kensit. Riggs cracks the jokes and does the outrageous mental stuff, while Glover's (still doing fine work in Gibson's shadow) Murtaugh continues to be the counter opposite. Tho some of the astute written sequences involving Murtaugh and the South African core of the story are excellently handled by Glover. But regardless of character development and nifty political observations, it's the action that dominates proceedings. Director Richard Donner has a wail of a time putting the cast thru their paces. There's explosions, fights, shoot-outs, more high speed pursuits, and on it goes till we get to the finale, a potential cliffhanger one too.
Overall rating: 9 out of 10.
But it's the supreme comfort of Mel Gibson and Danny Glover, with both each other and the script that rockets this to the top of buddy movies to such an extent that it became ripe for parody. The director again proves his command of this material with a handful of memorable scenes, and especially his use of Gibson in his trademark "lethal weapon" scenes, which coined the franchise title. Even though Gibson is a lot less depressed in this film you still completely believe him as a guy that has nothing to lose.
It's fair to say that this is Gibson's movie, because it's written that way. Some of Riggs' back story is filled in and he even gets a love interest in the slender form of Patsy Kensit. Riggs cracks the jokes and does the outrageous mental stuff, while Glover's (still doing fine work in Gibson's shadow) Murtaugh continues to be the counter opposite. Tho some of the astute written sequences involving Murtaugh and the South African core of the story are excellently handled by Glover. But regardless of character development and nifty political observations, it's the action that dominates proceedings. Director Richard Donner has a wail of a time putting the cast thru their paces. There's explosions, fights, shoot-outs, more high speed pursuits, and on it goes till we get to the finale, a potential cliffhanger one too.
Overall rating: 9 out of 10.