Ending lines:
Riggs: Give us a kiss before they come.
Roger: Where did that bullet hit you anyway?
Maybe it's just silly 80s guy talk, but it's just funny to talk like that to your guy friend. At least it was in the 80s... In the first Lethal Weapon, a house blew up, and Roger tries to put out the fire on Riggs's coat by laying on top of him. "What are you, a fag?" Riggs asks. I think it was supposed to be a joke, and it probably was okay to say in 1987. Then in this one, Roger can't move off the toilet -- the classic bomb detonated to blow when he gets off the toilet scene. Riggs has the plan to pull Roger off and cover both of them in the bathtub with the bomb blanket. They make it to the bathtub, the bomb explodes, and when they realize they're not dead, they both laugh. Then Roger says to Riggs, "Would you mind getting off me. I don't want the other guys to see us like this."
It's just the part of the comedy in the series, I guess. But speaking of comedy, I'm not sure I like how much "funny" they want to add, especially when they are playing up the Three Stooges and Looney Tunes angle. Are we to take this movie seriously, or are we to watch it simply as a live-action cartoon? If it's just a live-action cartoon, then I think it loses a lot of its value.
This sequel is nowhere near as good as the original. I do like the toilet scene and Roger's daughter's commercial debut, which no one apparently knew was a condom ad until it aired? Not likely. But the opening sequence starts with a chase, which is not nearly as interesting as how the first film starts with a naked woman jumping to her death.
From the beginning, then, you know that this one will be a lot more about the chases and the explosions, and a lot less about the relationships and the character development. Even Roger's family, for example. They make an appearance, but they are largely absent, and noticeably so at times.
Riggs does explain to Roger's wife a little bit more about how he lost his own wife. Has he even told Roger about that? It's okay that he tells her, but it might be better if Roger was there to hear it too. In term of Riggs not being crazy, well he still spends a lot of this movie acting like he doesn't care if he lives or dies. He does give Roger his suicide bullet, but if he's committed to live, then why does he still act like he wants to die?
Like the first movie, the villains are just villains. They receive no character depth, and while I suppose some villains don't deserve character depth, it does make them one-dimensional and weak characters. Roger is able to kill two with a nail gun, and then he simply quips, "Nailed 'em both." Is that something you would really say after killing two guys, even if they were trying to kill you.
The villains in this film are the South Africans. They're all white men. The one South African white woman doesn't seem to know what apartheid is, or that everyone else (all men) working in the Consulate are evil. This makes it convenient for Riggs when he decides to hook up with her, but I don't really buy that plot point. Is he really going to stop what he's doing just to bring a hot woman back to his place for sex, especially when he can't be 100% sure that she's not just working at the Consulate, but that she might also be "working" with the other South Africans.
That he just leaves her at her apartment after having his own place shot to hell by the South Africans is not plausible. Also not plausible is Rog leaving Leo (Joe Pesci), the guy in the witness protection program that they're protecting, in their car while he goes into his house to follow up on something on a VHS tape. Why wouldn't he keep eyes on Leo?
Houses just blow up so easily in this series. Wouldn't houses blowing up make the national news? And in this movie, a house with three or four cops playing poker blows up. I know there's no time in the film to slow down and show how the department reacts to losing three or four of their men. I guess it all gets added to why both Riggs and Roger are so willing to take off their badges, forget about being cops for one night, and take out the bad guys Dirty Harry style.
Rating: 3/5 stars
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