There’s barely a franchise in the business that’s proven immune to the law of diminishing returns, so while it was always a completely expected development, the majority of Lethal Weapon fans know exactly why the classic buddy cop series began tapering off towards the end.
Nobody’s going to argue that the first two installments are among the finest procedural thrillers to emerge from modern Hollywood, the only real argument is whether or not you think Martin Riggs and Roger Murtaugh’s first outing is better or worse than the second. Lethal Weapon 3 and 4 may be the two highest-grossing entries in the saga, then, but they’re also the worst-reviewed by far.
Mel Gibson and Danny Glover’s contributions to the iconic IP racked up Rotten Tomatoes scores of 80, 82, 58, and 52 percent, and sanding down the rougher edges of the characters and the world they inhabit in favor of more overt slapstick and formulaic blockbuster escapades ended up hurting Lethal Weapon in the long run.
Don’t get us wrong, it’s still deservedly held up as one of the monoliths of the buddy cop experience for many good and entirely valid reasons, but the third and fourth outings had lost a little of the shine that made Lethal Weapon so special in the first place. There’s still plenty of fun to be had, though, and streaming subscribers are in full agreement.
Per FlixPatrol, both the third and fourth flicks have charted on iTunes this week, and they remain more than capable of tiding folks over until Gibson finally calls action on the long-awaited Lethal Weapon 5.