Lethal Weapon

I vowed that 2009 would be the year I finally went back and started watching all these movies it feels like I should have already seen. The Lethal Weapon series was high on that list. I had only ever seen Part 4 so I was pretty excited to see what all the hype was about.

It was kind of strange because as this movie went on it really felt like I had seen it before just because so many other things have referenced this movie. If anything it made me really want to re-watch Loaded Weapon 1. Now I'll finally get all of the jokes!

I can see where these movies get their reputation. The first Lethal Weapon is pretty damn good. It has a decent story, some solid action, and the chemistry between Mel Gibson and Danny Glover started out fantastic right from the very beginning.

Having only seen the fourth movie, it was strange to see how different the tone of the first one was. The fourth movie was more a comedy than anything, but the first one is more a straight up action movie with more drama than comedy. Mel Gibson's character is suicidal and pretty much insane, a pretty huge difference from where he ended up later in the series. There is some good comedy here, but it takes the backseat to the action and drama.

That being said, I really liked Gibson's character in this movie, as well as the other earlier ones. He's just so fucking insane that he's awesome to watch. His eyes are wide and terrifying and you never know what he is going to do next. Glover's character is good too and as I said, the chemistry between them is great.

Lethal Weapon 1 is a good movie, that's about all I can say really. It's full of the usual cop movie cliches but the odd thing is, back when the movie came out these weren't even really cliches yet. So you can't even fault the movie too much for that.

7.5/10