Lethal Weapon 3

Mel Gibson’s Martin Riggs and Danny Glover’s Roger Murtaugh return for this erratic yet entertaining sequel that finds the buddy cops up against a vicious former detective (Stuart Wilson’s Jack Travis), with the somewhat overstuffed narrative also emphasizing Riggs’ budding relationship with Rene Russo’s Lorna Cole and Murtaugh’s ongoing difficulties with his son’s gang-affiliated friends. It’s in that latter subplot that Lethal Weapon 3, which is mostly quite entertaining and engaging, sporadically does falter, as the narrative’s momentum generally comes to an almost total stop when the focus shifts to these underdeveloped characters’ exploits. (There is, for example, a mid-movie funeral that probably should’ve been excised completely from the final cut.) It’s in the always-reliable chemistry between Gibson and Glover’s respective characters that Lethal Weapon 3 excels, then, and there’s little doubt, too, that filmmaker Richard Donner manages to punctuate the proceedings with a number of impressively exciting action set-pieces. (And this is to say nothing of Wilson’s irresistibly smarmy work as the picture’s moustache-twirling villain.) And while the movie never manages to reach the heights of its immediate predecessor, Lethal Weapon 3 is nevertheless a better-than-average sequel that remains rather watchable for most of its 118 minutes.

*** out of ****