LETHAL WEAPON 3
A film review by Jerry Boyajian
Copyright 1992 Jerry Boyajian
About 20 minutes into LETHAL WEAPON 3, my nephew turned to me and asked, "Does this movie have a plot?" And that question represents everything that is wrong with LW3. Quite frankly, the movie is a mess on a number of levels. A *funny* mess, to be sure, but still a mess. As the Bard of Avon would put it, it was full of sound and fury, signifying nothing. It was just about everything a bad sequel usually is.
Let's look at the bad news first:
o A lot of the action seemed random. During the armored car chase,
all I could think of was how noisy and pointless it was.
o There was no *thought* put into the case. Instead of doing real
detective work, Riggs & Murtaugh seemed to have answers just fall
into their laps like manna from heaven. Or even worse, just sort
of stumble into things.
o The main bad guy was completely one-dimensional. At least
Mr. Joshua & the General in LW1 and Pieter & Rudd in LW2 had
*two* dimensions.
o Joe Pesci's appearance in the film smacked of dollarsigns. Not just because he's "hot" at the moment, but because it seemed to exploit his contribution to LW2. His character and performance in LW2 was what made the film -- his presence as "the Third Stooge" made it distinctive enough from the original. To put him in the third film seemed to be nothing but repetition of a successful ingredient in place of doing something else more innovative. Storywise, there was absolutely no reason for him to be in the film.
o The character of Murtaugh seemed to be relegated to second class status. The high point of the WEAPON films has been the utterly charming, and disarming, chemistry between Gibson and Glover. The reason to see the films is to see *them* bounce off each other. Here, the Gibson/Glover team was largely pushed aside in favor of the Gibson/Russo team.
o This wouldn't be so bad IF the idea was to let Murtaugh retire for
real. And in fact, before I saw the movie, I was suspecting that
they'd be building up Russo's character to take over as Riggs'
partner should a LETHAL WEAPON 4 be in the offing. As a changing
of the guard, the downplay of the Riggs/Murtaugh ream in favor of
the Riggs/Cole team would seem natural. But they copped out, much
to my dismay, and kept Roger from retiring.
o Even worse, this last bit *looked* like a last-minute rethink.
o What the hell happened to Sam and Burbank??? :-)
And now for the good news:
o The Gibson/Glover chemistry was still there, and if anything, it felt even stronger than in the previous two films, almost as if they realized that with the downplay of their partnership, each moment their shared was more precious and they packed as much as they could into them.
o Pesci was *hilarious* -- as much so as he was in LW2. I *still*
think he had no business being in the film, but as long as he was
in it, they did it right.
o The movie as a whole was funnier than the previous ones. They
upped the comedy level as a whole. This was a good move, as it
made the film enjoyable to watch despite all of its flaws.
o I liked Russo's character. Intelligent, attractive, competent, and a complete match for Riggs. Their love-making scene was delightful, going from comparing bullet wounds and other scars, to passionately kissing on the floor. The cut-away before any explicit was something of a pleasant change from the norm, as was the fact that this time, it was the *guy* who stripped to his underwear while the woman stayed fully clothed.
o While Murtaugh was being pushed aside as Riggs' partner, they did a lot of nice solo stuff with him. Kudos go to Glover for his sensitive performance of a man wracked with guilt over shooting a kid, despite it being completely justified. The later scenes with Roger's son were also very touching, as were the scenes at the funeral with the dead kid's parents.
All in all, I have to say that I enjoyed seeing the film, but my heart just isn't in it to recommend it. It doesn't even come close to either of the first two films in the series. In the last three or so months, I had occasion to see LW1 on video/cable. As soon as the film was over each time, I felt the urge to immediately spin up my laserdisc of LW2 and watch that all the way through (and I did). I don't know if I'll buy LW3 when it comes out on disc, but if I do, I doubt very much if I'll watch as much as I'll watch the first two.
--- jayembee (Jerry Boyajian, DEC, "The Mill", Maynard, MA) boyajian@ruby.enet.dec.com
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