Lethal Weapon 3

Okay - this is perhaps the most embarrassing and infuriating blog-related anecdote I have ever shared in eight years on this blog. And it ends with a weird lesson I haven't really fully parsed out yet. Bear with me.

I have never seen Lethal Weapon. It came out before I was born and I just never got around to it. But its reputation precedes it, and through the years I'd say I'm at least familiar with the movie. It's Mel Gibson and Danny Glover, and they're cops, Gibson being the brash young hothead and Glover being "too old for this shit," and they're partners, and it's widely regarded as the greatest "buddy cop" movie ever made, and Shane Black wrote it, and everyone loves it, and even It's Always Sunny has devoted multiple episodes to shitty fan-made sequels in the franchise.

Anyway, for a while I've known I had to correct this and see Lethal Weapon. I also needed a "prestige movie" hiatus after barreling through so many Oscar contenders in February. What better palate cleanser than a 1987 action comedy movie? And lo - there it was, listed as free on demand in the very small and shitty and limited Verizon Fios library. And the movie's thirtieth birthday is this weekend! Why not? I pressed play and gave it a watch. Lethal Weapon. Verizon, On Demand. Lethal Weapon.

The movie plays. It's a little cheesy right out of the gate, but in a way that boasts a certain confidence in its characters, in its writing, hell, even in its audience. Here are Riggs and Murtaugh defusing a bomb, cracking jokes, Murtaugh worrying, Riggs completely reckless. Murtaugh is, right from the outset, counting down the days until his retirement. There are only seven left! (Ha! Is this the movie that made that into a trope?) The best thing I can say for the movie is that it's instantly comfortable in its own skin. It almost feels like a parody of itself, with smooth saxophone playing over and between action scenes, with Riggs and Murtaugh riffing on each other in a way that leads the audience to assume that they're long-time partners. But I mean, I've seen Kiss Kiss Bang Bang and The Other Guys, and weird, frantic plots are kind of Shane Black's thing. None of this is coming as a surprise to me. Shane Black's movies often seem to feel a little bit like self parody - maybe he was just a bit duller in his first effort. That shouldn't be surprising, right? Plus, it's the eighties - everything was duller, blunter, dumber back then. 

So when Joe Pesci showed up, playing a caricature, like Joe Pesci does, I didn't bat an eye. And when Murtaugh kept making jokes about Riggs trying to sleep with his daughter even though the two hadn't even interacted, I didn't think twice. Still, the whole thing felt like... so much less than what I was expecting from an all-time action comedy classic. The eighties weren't that bad. Nostalgia isn't that powerful. But I trusted the masses and the conventional wisdom and convinced myself that what I was watching was, sure, pretty good, when viewed through the right lens. I was all set to give it a three and a half out of five on Letterboxd, even though it felt like more of a two and a half or a straight three, because I really had been hoping for and expecting a four.

And then I'm on Letterboxd, ready to log the movie, and I notice that Gary Busey has third billing. And I'm like, "wait, what? I didn't recognize Gary Busey at all." And then I see that Joe Pesci doesn't appear anywhere among the cast. And I'm like, "but I swear that was Joe Pesci." And then suddenly it hits me. Despite what Verizon On Demand had said - Lethal Weapon (1987) - and despite the poster art saying the same, I had not actually just watched Lethal Weapon.

I had just watched Lethal Weapon 3.

And suddenly it all made sense. Immediately comfortable in its own skin? No shit, it came after two movies of groundwork establishing these characters and their relationship. Murtaugh just a week away from retirement? Ha - a payoff to the idea that he's been getting too old for this shit! The idea that it was all a little dumb and not very clever? Well, no shit - Shane Black had nothing to do with it at all. Riggs having some sort of history with Murtaugh's daughter? Entirely plausible as a callback to a previous incident rather than random dad fear played for jokes!

Wow. I will now field some of your questions.

Seriously? You had no idea? You thought you were watching Lethal Weapon the whole time?

Seriously! I had no idea! I thought I was watching Lethal Weapon the whole time!

But there was no Gary Busey.

I know! But I didn't know Gary Busey was supposed to be in the first Lethal Weapon.

But Murdaugh was retiring.

Yes, and we've been over this - all I knew about the character was that he'd been getting "too old for this shit!" It fit!

But that line's not even in the movie.

Yes - and in hindsight, maybe I should have noticed that it was missing. But for all I knew, it came from one of the sequels!

Seriously, you confused the half-ass sequel for the original? You couldn't tell, based on how bad it was?

Okay - it wasn't that bad! As I said, two and a half or three stars out of five. Totally passable. And for all I knew, that's all the original Lethal Weapon was! I already said, it never quite struck me as this iconic, quotable gem of a movie - and now at least I know the consensus happens to agree with me.

Okay, but the opening titles. Did Lethal Weapon 3 not pop up on the screen right at the beginning?

I went back and checked the opening credits on YouTube just to make sure I wasn't losing my mind, and they're done in this very fiery motif, and when the movie title finally comes in, Lethal Weapon is written in an actual typeface and the Arabic numeral 3 is made out of flames, which, again, had been the background and motif for the entire opening sequence. In hindsight, it's as clear as day to anyone knowingly watching Lethal Weapon 3 that the title says Lethal Weapon 3. But when you think you're watching Lethal Weapon - which I was - I promise you, the 3 is more subtle.

But yeah, like I led off with up top, the whole thing is embarrassing and infuriating. Like, how did I not know? Fucking Verizon...

Which brings me to that last point, the weird little lesson I haven't fully parsed. It has something to do with hype and expectations, but it cuts both ways. Lethal Weapon 3 wasn't a great movie, but I was able to convince myself it was at least a good movie, briefly, because I didn't want to be "the guy" who hates on Lethal Weapon, which is what I thought I was watching. But at the same time, maybe - maybe! - Lethal Weapon 3 is a fine little movie that gets over-criticized by people who loved (and expected) more of the first movie. I wasn't tired of these characters or their schtick, nor did I have previous, more well-defined versions of these characters to compare them to in an unfavorable light.

This also serves as a stark callback to a time (the early '90s) when movie sequels were made without it being expressly assumed that audiences had seen every previous installment in a franchise. This movie works just fine as a standalone. It doesn't work all that well, but it does work! And I don't think that'd be the case with something like The Hunger Games or Harry Potter.

Bottom line, draw what moral you will from this story - I had myself convinced this might have been a great movie mostly because I didn't want to hate on Lethal Weapon, but that sort of means I cratered and let the masses dictate my own reaction to something, so boo on me, but also let's not ignore that this sequel "passed" fully convincingly for the original, so maybe the things the rest of the world cherishes and loves about the original aren't what made it a great movie in the first place, if it even was one, which, hey, this jury's still out.

Fuck. What a gaffe!