Lethal Weapon 2

In the wake of Lethal Weapon, producers across Hollywood had started running the buddy-cop concept into the ground, which made 1989’s Lethal Weapon 2 a reminder of how to do this schtick right, with just as much emphasis on loose character interaction as on violent action. Read full review

If there is one thing that I've learned from Stephen Spielberg, and George Lucas it's that the easiest way to win an audience is to employ an antagonist that everyone hates, like the Nazis, or Stormtroopers. Producers Richard Donner and Joel Silver take a lesson in the first sequel to Lethal Weapon and pit Gibson and Glover against fascist dimplomatically-immune South Africans. Read full review

But while the story may not be especially memorable, Jeffrey Boam’s brisk screenplay and Donner’s workmanlike direction keep things moving enough to gather enough momentum in preparation for Gibson’s third-act, tear-down-the-house rampage. Read full review

By concentrating on the often frustrating, funny relationship between the three men, the film gains in humour but loses some of the momentum and panache which distinguished the original. Read full review

Audiences with an insatiable appetite for car chases, explosions, menacing helicopters and relentless mayhem should have a good time. For the more demanding, Lethal Weapon 2 is closer to Excedrin Headache No. 2. [07 July 1989, p.G5]

Subtlety is not the draw here: condom jokes and toilet humor alternate with car crashes and machine-gun killings. Yet the movie has a bouncy, comic-book appeal: sadism has rarely been so good-natured. [17 July 1989, p.53]

Lethal Weapon 2, a sequel, is better than the first film, Lethal Weapon. Not only better, but far better, for the following reasons: Joe Pesci. Less (if not much) violence. Danny Glover doesn't try to be Bill Cosby at home. A screenplay that is funny. Joe Pesci. [07 July 1989, p.3E]

Lethal Weapon 2, which is based on a story by Warren Murphy and series' originator Shane Black, is nearly as good as the original. It has its flaws. The story too closely parallels the original, a Golden Triangle conspiracy that had more mercenaries running around Los Angeles than the Third World. [08 July 1989, p.1D]

Lethal Weapon, that BMW of buddy movies, spawns Lethal Weapon 2, a blacktop-blistering bad-guy-getter that's nearly twice as much fun. Read full review

Lethal Weapon 2 is that rarity - a sequel with most of the same qualities as the original. I walked into the movie with a certain dread. But this is a film with the same off-center invention and wild energy as the original. Read full review

Before it skids out of control in the final sequence, the film is so careful to preserve its successful comic-action formula that it follows the most basic law of sequels. If you liked ''Lethal Weapon,'' you'll like Lethal Weapon 2; it's almost as simple as that. Read full review

Loaded with the usual elements, Lethal Weapon 2 benefits from a consistency of tone that was lacking in the first film. This time, screenwriter Jeffrey Boam and director Richard Donner have wisely trained their sights on humor and the considerable charm of Mel Gibson and Danny Glover's onscreen rapport. Read full review

But no, Lethal Weapon 2 is no artless, autopiloted waste of precious movie-theater air conditioning. It's fun stuff -- crackling, playfully escapist summer fare that doesn't make you feel taken advantage of later. Read full review

Sitting through Lethal Weapon 2 is like dating a jackhammer. It's a slick, cynical, high-speed assembly line of car chases, jokes, sex, explosions and blood. [41 Jul 1989, p.41]

Yet another disappointing summer sequel, Lethal Weapon 2, with Danny Glover and Mel Gibson reprising their cop-buddy roles in pursuit of South African drug lords. [7 Jul 1989, p.A]

Lethal Weapon 2 has the brain-rattling pace of a terminal speed freak going the wrong way down an expressway. [7 Jul 1989, p.1]

Lethal Weapon 2 is bang-bang and brain-dead in roughly equal measure. If there's an advantage this time out, it's that the film seems to play the action (and its lead character's psychoses) more for laughs. [7 Jul 1989, p.1D]

That first movie raised the craft of torture to a low art. Expect no less in LW2, directed by Richard Donner and written by Jeffrey Boam. This installment features a surfboard decapitation, death by carpenter's nail gun, a bomb wired to a very sensitive seat ( and reduction of the Afrikaaner diaspora by about one-half. (24July 1989, p.53)

The movie overall may be routine, but Donner gives it some spark and polish. Read full review

Unlike most sequels Lethal Weapon 2 is neither predictable nor conventional. It's just pumped full of juice. Read full review

Returning director Richard Donner seems to have smoothed over the few stylistic rough edges remaining from the earlier film to deliver here two hours of pure, breathless, high-impact entertainment. Read full review