Lethal Weapon 2 poster
Lethal Weapon 2

What’s Aged the Worst?

'Nailed them both' pun; overlong love story; Donald Trump reference; Riggs's dive-and-roll bullet dodging; villains having killed Riggs's wife; rule-breaking police propaganda; Mel Gibson

In the discussion (10)
Approx. transcript time · 01:01:30Read transcript
  • The nail-gun scene's shoehorned 'nailed them both' is the worst version of bad 80s action puns.
  • The love story runs maybe three minutes too long, though the movie is under two hours.
  • A random Donald Trump reference.
  • The number one choice: Riggs's bullet avoidance of diving and flipping, which would still get him shot, especially by a machine gun.
  • The South Africans having killed Riggs's wife is unneeded: the girlfriend's death is motivation enough to pull down the stilt house.
  • Agreement, likened to the New Jack City reveal that Nino Brown killed Scotty's mom.
  • Perhaps it gave Riggs closure, but the wife dying in a random accident on the one night he didn't drive her is more affecting.
  • The movie is classic propaganda: Riggs has no warrant and they break every policing rule now being reformed.
  • Mel Gibson himself, again: 'Why, Mel?', spoiling his other movies.
  • The wife-killing reveal could have been saved as the plot of Lethal Weapon 3.