Lethal Weapon – Imagine My Surprise

The moment I heard that Fox was going to air a ‘Lethal Weapon’ remake I lost my shit. I went back and forth between being outraged and downright bewildered. I love Lethal Weapon. And yes, a lot of people love it, but I – LOVE – it. I have the poster on my wall. I watch it when I’m sad, when I’m happy, when I’m lonely, and on Christmas (best Christmas movie ever made, followed closely by Die Hard and Just Friends of course). Whether you love Mel or despise him you cannot ignore the fact that he’s one talented, charming SOB – and never is that more evident than in Riggs. But I digress. This is not a discussion on whether or not a Lethal Weapon remake should be made – because it WAS made, and nobody asked my opinion.  Rather this is a discussion on whether or not Lethal Weapon can work in a television format. Short answer? I guess so. Long answer? Buckle up.

The most important thing to know, is that it isn’t terrible. It’s not even bad. It’s kind of good. Is the story great? No. But was it ever? Is the action ridiculous? It’s McG guys, of course it is. It’s flashy and unbelievable – Riggs get’s shot twice and just kind of laughs about it. So what works about it? The same thing that worked in the original. The leads. I wanted to hate this show. I wanted to tear it to shreds and get some semblance of revenge for tarnishing one of my all time favorite film franchises. In particular I wanted to hate Clayne Crawford (Riggs) with his stupid name and his stupid too round face and his greasy-dirty-not-nearly-as-beautiful-as-Mel’s-hair hair, but the bastard – and the show – won me over. As I said the writing is nothing special, the chase scenes are fun but with TV budget will no doubt fall by the wayside, so what we have left is the genuinely charming and fun interplay between Wayans and Crawford. What’s so great about these guys is that they don’t try and be Gibson and Glover. The writing throws some fun nods to the original, but I never felt like Crawford and Wayans were locked into trying to emulate someone else’s portrayal. They make these characters their own – just different enough. I spent the first 15 minutes wishing that Mel and Danny would show up and take over, but somewhere along the way I just forgot to miss them.

Will it last? Who knows. Being on Fox is cause for concern, they love cancelling things – The Grinder rests. But as a buddy cop procedural, it’s actually pretty darn good and I could definitely see myself following their adventures week to week. It beats the hell out of last year’s lackluster Rush Hour. It will never be as good as the original, but luckily it doesn’t have to be. In the immortal words of Leo Getz: they’re not better friends than Froggie, they’re just different.

small   medium   Large   refillable   Popcorn (3/4)