Lethal Weapon Legacy (Director's Cut) [3 Discs]

LETHAL WEAPON-Family man and LAPD Det Roger Murtaugh (Danny Glover) has just turned 50 and he is in for one heck of a birthday. First, he must investigate the mysterious death of a friend's daughter, and then he must break in a new partner. Loose cannon Det. Martin Riggs (Mel Gibson) doesn't care if he lives or dies. When the two partners come together for this case, they discover a connection between the victim and a herion drug ring that involves ex-millitary special-ops officers. The original film, for me, reinvigorated the cop-buddy picture The chemistry between Gibson and Glover is evident from the first time they appear on screen together. The script by Shane Black has lots of action, solid characters, and some genuine laughs The film has 7 minutes of added material. There's a few production notes, cast and crew information, and the theatrical trailer

LETHAL WEAPON 2-Riggs and Murtaugh are asked to protect a Government witness, fast-talking Leo Getz (Joe Pesci), who is going to testify that he laundered lots of money. The scheme is tied to a South African diplomat, (Joss Ackland) who hides behind diplomatic immunity to commit his crimes. For this sequel, the humor and action are stepped up quite a bit. Pesci is pitch perfect here as Getz. He fits in nicely and the perfect comic foil to the guys already outrageous antics. Meanwhile, the audience learns some interesting stuff about the death of Riggs's wife Vicki, first revealed in the original film. There is an additional three minutes of footage in the Director's Cut. There is a featurette on 2 of stunts seen in the film, production notes, cast and crew info, and the theatrical trailer.

LETHAL WEAPON 3-Riggs and Murtaugh are hot on the trail of a sinister crooked cop named Travis (Stuart Wilson) This time the boys are aided by a tough talking Internal Affairs agent, Lorna Cole (Rene Russo), who forms a love hate relationship with Riggs, (They are great together), after Murtaugh shoots a suspect and loses confidence. I don't think that "Lethal 3" holds up quite as well against the other 2 films in the set. I think that Wilson was miscast in the film, and for me that hurts the film. The other problem is that the film has pacing issues and can lag from time to time. Still, LW3 isn't all that bad, I guess. I just think it could have been better. There is an additional three minutes of footage in the Director's Cut of the film. There are production notes, cast and crew info, and the theatrical trailer on the disc.

The set is solid but I wish that there were more in the way of extras for each film. For extras on the Lethal Weapon film series, I recommend the Lethal Weapon 4 DVD. There's also another set available that has all 4 fims with the theatrical versions on the discs. I personally prefer the Legacy Collection along with the single disc for LW4 Recommended set.

Sadly, this set is somewhat devoid of special features. I was disappointed that Warner didn't use the 'Lethal 4' DVD release (which included a half-hour restrospective and a feature-length commentary track) as the model to go off of for the LW Director's Cut DVDs. Aside from the obligatory trailers & restored scenes, there's not much else to these discs. Only LW2 has a featurette that goes behind-the-scenes during the nighttime helicopters-shooting-at-Riggs'-trailer scene.

Still, the sound & picture quality of these discs practically blow away (doh!) their VHS counterparts, which were pretty good themselves. Thanks to those extra background channels, you can really hear the reverb when our heroes start poppin' caps at the bad guys! I only wish Warner would finally get around to releasing their mo-pic DVDs in sturdy plastic keep cases, rather than those fairly flimsy & not-very-durable cardboard snap sleeves they seem to favor...

'Late