LETHAL WEAPON
: Terrific action thriller, especially in its director's cut (which contains a couple of rather shocking, no-punches-pulled scenes absent from the theatrical version, in which we learn just how tough and tormented Riggs is - shame the original opening barfight and the alternate ending weren't spliced in, though). Only flaw is that it's perhaps a little too po-faced for its own good, but only a little.
LETHAL WEAPON 2
: Awesome sequel with (thankfully) much more humour. Better villains this time round, a sexy love interest for Riggs (Patsy Kensit is in "Emmerdale" these days - how the mighty....), and good old Joe Pesci talking about how they **** you at the drive-through. Classic.
LETHAL WEAPON 3
: Here's where they really dropped the ball, with a massive overdose of gratuitous comedy (Pesci is
horribly overused, and the hospital sequence would have been rejected by the POLICE ACADEMY team as too unsophisticated), which is not only irritating (and, by and large, unfunny) but actually has the effect of making the action scenes seem genuinely vicious and unpleasant by contrast. The Murtaugh household has become "The Cosby Show" by this point, while the subplot involving the street gangs is contrived, sentimental and embarrassing. Stuart Wilson's villain is as weak as water, and there's not really any plot to speak of. Oh, and that's a truly
hideous mullet there, Mel. Now I'm pissed, Rog!
LETHAL WEAPON 4
: What a nice surprise (especially after LW3): another really excellent sequel. Yeah, the plot is pretty thin, while there's very hardcore, in-your-face comic relief from Chris Rock as well as Pesci, and plenty of ethnic stereotyping to offend you if you're in the mood to be offended. The script's a bit odd, too, with various funny little half-explored threads that are like old mountain roads overgrown with foliage, leading nowhere (who
is the "human tank" at the beginning, anyway?). Still, somehow it works superbly, thanks chiefly to the wonderful chemistry between Gibson and Glover - the way these two actors play off each other really is the heart and soul of the LETHAL WEAPON franchise, and it's never more apparent than here. Only Riggs and Murtaugh could bust a perp and screw things up by getting stoned on laughing gas, and
still keep us laughing with them, rather than at them. And the way LW4 wraps things up for its heroes and their extended families is really quite moving.
DIE HARD
: A totally flawless film. Everything about it is perfect: the script, the directing, the cinematography, the score, the production design, the editing, the casting.... not only an edge-of-seat thriller with some of the most incredible action sequences ever put together, as well as one of the most influential movies in recent memory (to pick just one example of its influence, Alan Rickman gave employment to dozens of Brit actors to play intelligent, well-spoken baddies in Hollywood actionfests), but a picture crammed with moments of extraordinary visual beauty. Really, one of the finest films ever made.
DIE HARD 2
: Not the out-and-out masterpiece its predecessor is, but an excellent sequel that captures the soul and spirit of the original (not an easy thing to do) and matches it in brilliantly-staged thrills and spills. About as good a followup as could reasonably have been hoped for, considering.
DIE HARD WITH A VENGEANCE
: While I'm a hardcore DIE HARD/McTiernan fan, I've always found this one a bit of a disappointment. Kudos to McT for not repeating himself, but WITH A VENGEANCE has too little echo of the atmosphere of the first two DIE HARDs (and I've never liked the way McT airbrushes the events of DIE HARD 2 out of existence). The McClane/Zeus combination is a little too LETHAL WEAPON, while Jeremy Irons and his terrorists just plain ain't scary (and the baddies in the first two DIE HARDs are very, very scary indeed). And, as would be the case with a HALLOWEEN film, a DIE HARD flick not set mostly at night just doesn't seem right, for some reason. By no means a dead loss, but easily the least of the DIE HARDs.
(For the record, I much prefer the DIE HARDs to the LETHAL WEAPONs.)
), here's my take on Lethal Weapon and Die Hard.
