hyped garbage

Good , But It Is Overrated By Some

Fantastic!

The plot isn't so bad, but the pace of storytelling is too slow which makes people bored. Certain moments are so obvious and unnecessary for the main plot. I would've fast-forwarded those moments if it was an online streaming. The ending looks like implying a sequel, not sure if this movie will get one

There was a time when this franchise was thought to be finished. There was a neat little trilogy which ended quite sufficiently story wise. The main two actors were getting on in years, there seemed to be no real reason to go back to this well. Funny, we find ourselves in that very spot yet again, apparently.So back in 1997 Warner Bros had a bad summer with its crop of releases. The studio needed a big hit and fast, and that safe bet was the Lethal Weapon franchise. Alas things did not go overly smoothly with an unfinished script and short production time. The actual script was never completely locked down and changed throughout the production. Regular character Leo Getz (Joe Pesci) was brought back after initially being kicked out, whilst new character Butters (Chris Rock) was also introduced late in the game (being gay originally). Its worth pointing out that the movies ending had also not been written when the cameras started rolling for the first time.So this time the plot moves away from drug smuggling and into people smuggling. The lads stumble across a Chinese immigrant smuggling ring being run by some Triads. These bad guys are forcing one specific Chinese man (who clearly has some special skills) to engrave plates to create counterfeit Chinese money. In exchange for this the Triads are bringing his family to the US. Murtaugh and Riggs find themselves helping this specific family whilst trying to crack the illegal smuggling ring. So essentially its the same thing all over again, just swap out drug shipments for people shipments.I think the main issue with this movie is the fact it lacks action, for an action movie. There is a huge focus on the characters and their family lives here, which isn't necessarily a bad thing, but it does get a tad dull. You don't really feel like you're watching an action movie, more like a TV comedy series. Overall I felt the movie struggled to keep things interesting. That being said, this movie did take a surprising turn back towards the original in terms of being somewhat darker, both content wise and visually.Both Riggs and Murtaugh are getting way too old for this shit. Riggs spends most of his time complaining about how old he's getting, and we are indeed shown how old he's getting in a few scenes. Where as Murtaugh is quite frankly past it, you're left wondering how this guy is still working on the force...in the field! The duo no longer come across like a mismatched pair of cops, but more like a mismatched pair of old fogies having a fun day out from their retirement home.Lorna Cole (Rene Russo) is also back but has now been reduced to a background character that is pregnant. She is no longer kicking ass with a smug grin on her face, oh no. Now she's lurching around slowly, heavily pregnant and stuffing her face with all manner of foods (because pregnancy equals cheap food gags). Whilst on one hand this angle is further expanding the story for both her and Riggs, it does kinda spoil her character. I really don't think we needed to see that, surely they could have set the movie after she had the baby?As said Leo is back too and just as daft as ever. This time Leo has become a private eye so now he has a badge and can kinda get in on the action legally. Again its the same scenario with Leo Getz, he's a funny character but way way too stupid for this type of flick. Well that's what I would be saying but we all know this franchise turned into a slapstick comedy affair so technically he fits in fine. Its just a shame that they had to fall back on old jokes (a common problem with sequels). Did we really need another 'they f*ck you at the drive-thru' gag? Sure its amusing but you mean to tell me they couldn't think of anything new?New character Detective Lee Butters (stupid name) is secretly getting married to Murtaugh's daughter (who is also pregnant) which is one comedy aspect to his characters story. The other being the new comedy double act that arises between him and Leo. This starts up by Leo inadvertently mistaking Butters for a perp and Butters taking offense, making it racial etc...From there on Leo thinks Butters is too touchy and Butters is always ragging on him. This was a neat little set up but its tainted because you know perfectly well its only in the movie to serve Chris Rock's stand-up routines. At the time Rock was the new comedic sensation in the USA and clearly that got him this gig. Bottom line, Rock was badly miscast and stuck out like a sore thumb. Every time he spoke it just felt like part of his stand-up act, like the movie pauses just so he can have his little spot.Again the villains in a Lethal Weapon movie aren't all that intimidating or threatening. The Chinese bad guys here were generally faceless (as usual) except for Uncle Benny (Kim Chan) who was too old frankly. The actor playing him really didn't come across as if he could actually act, whilst his character just doesn't do anything (probably because he looked around 90 years old. Think old man Lo Pan in 'Big Trouble in Little China'). Then you had Jet Li in his first American movie, and first role as a bad guy. Now where as Li is perfectly fine as the mysterious silent bad guy, he's clearly too over-powered for the movies protagonists. Yet at the same time he's still not that overly intimidating, he's more like a deadly monk. He didn't even dress like a baddie.And herein lies another issue with this movie, the main bad guy is just too powerful. During the movie we are shown how strong, agile and skilled Li's character is. Yet in the finale battle between Riggs, Murtaugh and Wah Sing Ku, the good guys win. Its a typical problem with many similar movies. The highly skilled martial artist bad guy can defeat just about anyone effortlessly, but can't beat the aging good guys. This literally makes a mockery of the entire movie really. Not to mention the quite ridiculous moment when Murtaugh saves Riggs from drowning in the final showdown. Talk about movie magic and suspension of disbelief.In the end this late entry in the franchise felt completely unnecessary. Merely milking the last few drops out of the franchise whilst they still could; whilst the actors were still just about able to pull it off. Did it work? Was it unnecessary? Well yes and no. Overall the movie definitely looks better, moodier, and felt a bit darker/edgier in tone. It certainly feels more like the franchise of old rather than the cartoonish third sequel. But that said it simply cannot escape the feeling of being somewhat unmerited because they kinda tied everything up OK in said third movie. All the soppy family guff we get at the very end was basically not needed, much like this movie truth be told. But surprisingly its actually better than the third movie.6/10

Talking about the other films for a minute, while not perfect, the first film is very good and one of the best buddy-cop films there is (important to the development of them too). 'Lethal Weapon 2' was almost as good, and while 'Lethal Weapon 3' was a little disappointing it was still fun.Which is pretty much the same personal opinion for 'Lethal Weapon 4', though a slight improvement over the third. Like the third film, its weak link is the story, except it's even messier than that and sometimes has a going through the motions, tame feel, especially when one can't help comparing to the first two. It also could have done with having less going on and less characters, it did feel over-stuffed and muddled.'Lethal Weapon 4's' script is also the weakest in this component of the series. Not awful, as some of it is very funny and still intrigues, but there seemed to be too much of an emphasis on sentimentality and especially humour. The humour works better, because there are actually some funny moments like the dentist scene and the fried rice line but there were other parts where it was overdone. The sentimentality really doesn't work, am aware it's for character development but it was done in a very mawkish and under-cooked way and felt really odds and tacked on with the rest of the film.Was mixed on Chris Rock. Was expecting him to be a disaster and be completely out of place. The good news is that he is a little better than expected, there are times where he is amusing and has some good lines and moments with the rest of the cast. Not so good is that he featured in the film too heavily and some of Rock's shtick is overdone and annoying, when you already have Joe Pesci as a motor-mouth it feels overkill.However, the way 'Lethal Weapon 4' is shot and designed screams slick and stylish while Richard Donner once again directs with an assured hand. The score is atmospheric and groovy.Parts of the script doe entertain hugely and crackle in wit and tension, especially the aforementioned moments.Once again, the action is slick and bursts with excitement and tension, with terrific stunts and the sheer scale of them being worthy of huge admiration. The freeway scene and Jet Li's final fight are two of the series' best action sequences It is very easy to see why the chalk and cheese chemistry of the polar opposite characters of Riggs and Murtaugh became so popular, very rarely in a buddy-cop film has this kind of chemistry been so entertaining and perfectly pitched.Mel Gibson continues to excel in a performance as witty and intense has before. Danny Glover gives Murtaugh the right amount of spirit, subtlety and no-nonsense attitude.Joe Pesci, despite the character being a thrown-in plot device, is closer to the funny character he was in the second and not the irritating one in the third. Rene Russo's role is not as fresh and fairly side-lined but she is a lovely presence. While underused, Jet Li is a calmly sinister villain with some truly indestructibly awesome fighting skills, for me the second best overall villain of the series after Gary Busey in the original.In summary, fun if not blowing the mind. Doesn't see the series going out with a bang, but a long way from a whimper despite a few sizeable flaws threatening to make it so. 7/10 Bethany Cox

This sequel was decent, but it definitely didn't come anywhere close to the grittiness and intensity of the first two. The Chinese storyline was incredibly weak and uninteresting; the proposed neo-Nazi terrorist plot from the first script sounds far more intriguing than what we got from the Triad in this, even if Germans/neo-Nazis have been done to death in cinema. There were a lot of characters in this, which can be nice, but then nobody really stands out, which happened in this one. Adding Chris Rock's character "Butters" was completely unnecessary, although I did find a bit of humor in some of the misunderstood gay jokes, admittedly. The tone of the movie was much more light-hearted than the first two, but about on par with the third in that it was more comedic and sentimental than gritty and hard-hitting. The action scenes were great, especially the brutal final showdown, but it takes a lot of doing nothing to get to the good stuff, which is about three big sequences spread throughout the movie (the opening encounter with the pyromaniac at the start, the highway chase near the middle, and the warehouse sequence at the end).The running gag was Murtaugh and Riggs ("finally") getting too old to do the things they used to, and it works pretty well, but it's also a bit sad to see. Murtaugh was always too old even in the first movie, but Riggs was young and a fearless ass kicking machine in the first three, and in this one he's almost a shell of his former self. He's getting beat up and outpaced by just about everyone around him, and he's no longer the kung fu guy, this time around relying more on a brawling style, which I don't understand how or why that was changed. Sure, you can't move as fast when you're older, but to change an entire fighting style seems unrealistic. That's just one of the downfalls of this sequel, though.The Chinese sucked as villains. They weren't threatening enough. Jet Li's character was silent fury, sulking in a room until he had to throw down, but that's about it. He was criminally underused, and it seems like his abilities were toned down for the final fight in order for Riggs and Murtaugh to beat him. I could tell Mr. Joshua from LW1 and the Aryans from LW2 meant business. I could somewhat believe Jack Travis from LW3 was psychotic and brutal. I really didn't care about the Chinese villains in this one. Something was really lacking with them.Overall, this one is pretty interchangeable with LW3, but both are a huge step down from LW1 and LW2. Don't go into this expecting much.

Riggs and Murtaugh are back in "Lethal Weapon 4, which thankfully gets the franchise back on track after the misfire of "lethal weapon 3"Plot In A Paragraph: With old age creeping up on them, Riggs (Gibson) and Murtaugh (Glover) face personal problems whilst they do battle with some Chinese triads.I'll get what I don't like out the way first. There is an awful use of stunt doubles which are glaringly obvious when watching this on Blu-ray. Chris Rock, whilst OK. Seemed to be just doing his stand u routine through most of his time on screen. And Murtaugh saying "please let him be black" when referencing his grandchilds father, bothers me a lot more than it probably should have. I've never been a fan of that type of humour!! It's OK for Glover to say it cos he's Black, but if Gibson had have said "Please let him be white" all hell would have broken loose over racism!! Especially after what followed!! But hey ho!! That's just me, and it probably doesn't bother many other people. Now onto the good. It is always good to see Gibson and Glover together on screen as Riggs and Murtaugh, as they have a real chemistry together. I wonder how their friendship is now, I don't recall Glover speaking publicly about "those tapes" and think it would be a shame if they no longer got on. It is nice to see Rene Russo back and after his awful role in 3, I loved Joe Pesci's turn here, especially the scene at the cemetery at the end of the movie. Jet Li is brilliant and is the deadliest and best villain of the franchise in my opinion, he is a definite step up from Travis in Lethal Weapon 3.One of my favourite things about the Lethal Weapon franchise is the cast. It has not changed throughout the four movies. Aside from Gibson and Glover as Riggs, Darlene Love plays Murtaugh's wife, Traci Wolfe, Damon Hines, and Ebonie Smith are Murtaugh's kids, Steve Kahan (who I forgot to mention was also in Conspiracy Theory) is Captain Murphy, and Mary Ellen Trainor is the police psychiatrist. This is the final film in which composer Michael Kamen composed the music for producer Joel Silver. Kamen would pass away from multiple sclerosis in 2003.Lethal Weapon 4, ended things on a high with $130 million grossed at the domestic box office to end the year the 11th highest grossing movie of 1998.