LETHAL WEAPON 3
A film review by Ken Johnson
Copyright 1992 Ken Johnson
120 min., R, Comedy/Action, 1992 Director: Richard Donner Cast: Danny Glover, Mel Gibson, Joe Pesci, Rene Russo, Stuart Wilson
Danny Glover and Mel Gibson are back (unfortunately Glover's cat and Gibson's dog aren't for some unexplained reason). Glover is going to be retiring soon, and doesn't want to mess anything up. The two come across a case that is being hidden by Internal Affairs. They join with Gibson's female equivalent, Russo, from Internal Affairs, to catch a cop killer.
LETHAL WEAPON 3, although it is not as good as LETHAL WEAPON or LETHAL WEAPON 2, is fun to watch, although it has little substance. I recommend this film to fans of the LETHAL WEAPON series. I don't think that you will be disappointed. On a scale of zero to five, I give LETHAL WEAPON 3 a four. LETHAL WEAPON 3 is rated R for explicit language, adult situations, and violence.
LETHAL WEAPON 3 will soon be coming to video, and most likely that is the only way left to see it. This is one of those films that will be most spectacular on the big screen, so if you have a chance to see it in the theater, it is worth it. The story isn't as well written as in the first two, but Gibson and Glover have enough charm to carry the film with no problem.
One thing that I didn't like very much was Pesci's annoying character, which worked in the second film, but didn't work as well here. I think that the film is just using his current star power to bring more people to see the film. Not much was gained by his character (although he did have some great moments) and somebody else probably could have carried the role.
The way this series is going, I don't think that there will be a LETHAL WEAPON 4 (but they may surprise me). There is a lot more drama mixed in with the action, and a little less comedy. There is a heavy anti-gang message through the film. The beginning title was creatively done and I liked it. Unfortunately, those who end up seeing the film on video (when it comes out) will miss the full impact of it.
One new addition to the film was Rene Russo, who acted off Mel Gibson perfectly. A lot of the comedy comes from this pair. Glover's retiring jokes began to get tiring by the end of the film and I think that 1/3 of them should have been edited out of the film. The Mel Gibson and Danny Glover combination works out great.
-------- Ken Johnson blj@mithrandir.cs.unh.edu
.
The review above was posted to the
rec.arts.movies.reviews newsgroup (de.rec.film.kritiken for German reviews).
The Internet Movie Database accepts no responsibility for the contents of the
review and has no editorial control. Unless stated otherwise, the copyright
belongs to the author.
Please direct comments/criticisms of the review to relevant newsgroups.
Broken URLs inthe reviews are the responsibility of the author.
The formatting of the review is likely to differ from the original due
to ASCII to HTML conversion.
Related links: index of all rec.arts.movies.reviews reviews