Lethal Weapon Legacy

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    The Lethal Weapon Legacy boxed set is a collection of the four films in the Lethal Weapon saga, presented in Transparent Amaray cases within a nice cardboard slip case. In contrast to the Scream Screen Saga boxed set, there are no extra supplementals provided with this boxed set, merely the already-available pressings of the four films. This is a slight disappointment, since all four films could really use a recompressed dual-layer transfer, with the extras available on Lethal Weapon 4 spread more evenly over the saga. However, those who have yet to buy any of the Lethal Weapon films will find the value-for-money factor irresistible, because the price point of $99.95 means that the Lethal Weapon Legacy boxed set represents better value for money, with a saving of $47.85 compared to the cost of buying all four films separately.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall

Lethal Weapon (1987)

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General		Extras
Category	Action	None
Rating
Year Of Production	1987
Running Time	105:05
RSDL / Flipper	No/No	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Programme
Region Coding	2,4	Directed By	Richard Donner
Studio Distributor	Warner Home Video	Starring	Mel Gibson Danny Glover Gary Busey
Case	Amaray-Transparent
RPI	$29.95	Music	Michael Kamen Eric Clapton

Video		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	None	English Dolby Digital 5.1 (384Kb/s) French Dolby Digital 5.1 (384Kb/s) Italian Dolby Digital 5.1 (384Kb/s)
Widescreen Aspect Ratio	1.78:1
16x9 Enhancement
Video Format	576i (PAL)
Original Aspect Ratio	1.85:1	Miscellaneous
Jacket Pictures	No
Subtitles	English French Italian Dutch Arabic Spanish Portuguese German Romanian Bulgarian English for the Hearing Impaired Italian for the Hearing Impaired	Smoking	Yes
		Annoying Product Placement	Yes, very mildly
		Action In or After Credits	No

    Anyway, I'll continue with my description of the plot. Together, Riggs and Murtaugh investigate the somewhat mysterious death of a young prostitute named Amanda. As luck and a good script would have it, this particular prostitute is the daughter of Michael Hunsaker (Tom Atkins), a man who saved Murtaugh's life in Vietnam on one occasion. As a further matter of fact, this same man is rather heavily involved in a drug-running ring with other Vietnam vets being led by a man credited only as The General (the character's full name is General Peter McAllister, and he is played rather woodenly by Mitchell Ryan). His lieutenant, who is only known throughout the film as Mister Joshua (Gary Busey), is like a vicious sort of Anti-Riggs. The climactic fight sequences in the last twenty minutes of the film are especially enhanced by his presence. However, nothing in the film compares to the sequence in which The General, after having lost his driver to a bullet and having been hit by a bus, finds himself trapped in a wreck with several about-to-detonate grenades. Thrills and spills might not quite come in abundance with this film, but when they do come, they're very intense. Did I also mention that this instalment has the best story line?

Video

    The film is presented in an aspect ratio of 1.78:1 with 16x9 enhancement.

    Given the film's age, this transfer is remarkably free of artefacts. The occasional speck of dirt shows up on the negatives here and there, and there's that lovely speck of water on the lens of the camera to give away the age of the film, but otherwise, this is an excellent transfer. Apart from a line on the film at 64:05, film artefacts went unnoticed. The most telltale sign of the film's age lies in the lighting setup, where flares from the sun show up regularly, and Mel Gibson's hairdo (of course). If haircuts and technology were truly timeless, then one would be forgiven for thinking that they were looking at a film of very recent vintage. Shadow detail is remarkable for a film of this age, as is the sharpness and the lack of low level noise. Most of the details that were lost in darkness on the VCR version of the film have been rescued from the depths on this DVD. This makes Warner Brothers' failures with other Lethal Weapon films, and other films from the mid-to-late eighties, all the more frustrating. Film-to-video artefacts were mild, coming from the usual suspects. The occasional car grille showed a little aliasing here and there, as one would reasonably expect. It was rather hard for me to tell if the occasional losses of definition in background details were bona fide artefacts or just hangovers from the 1987 photography (it's more likely to be the latter). However, when all is said and done, this film has come out exceptionally well from the digital treatment. The only sequence in which the quality of the photography is not optimal is the climactic hand-to-hand fight between Riggs and Mr. Joshua, and this is only because clarity was a secondary consideration when it was originally photographed.

(Addendum March 27, 2000: One moderate MPEG artefact occurs during the conversation between Martin and Roger after the dinner with the Murtaughs, at 47:28. It consists of some pixellation on the screen that may or may not be a digital dropout. This only occurs for half a second at most, and is not enough to deduct points over in spite of its noticeability.)

    Like a lot of Warner Brothers titles, the subtitles only bear a passing relation to the actual dialogue. While they are helpful during moments when the dialogue isn't quite meant to be understood, they are otherwise a pain. The subtitles are offered in a choice of English, French, Italian, Dutch, Arabic, Spanish, Portuguese, German, Romanian, Bulgarian, English for the Hearing Impaired, and Italian for the Hearing Impaired. Would it really be asking too much, Warners, for subtitles that are fully concurrent with the screenplay?

Audio

    Audio sync doesn't appear to be a problem on my trusty Grundig, although it appears that a lot of allowances were made in the principal photography of the film for any such difficulties. A lot of the speech occurs when the principal characters are off-screen, obscured by props, or in the midst of rapid movements. The only times when this doesn't occur was during the introduction of the characters, and the classic dinner sequence. However, a problem avoided during principal photography is perfectly fine as it won't stick out like aliasing during the non 16x9 enhanced version of The Thing. The surround channels were mainly used to support the music and special effects. The subwoofer worked hard to support the gunshots, explosions, impacts, and music. In other words, it got a reasonable amount of exercise from start to finish.

    The score music by Michael Kamen and Eric Clapton is very good for contemporary music applied to film. It is difficult to imagine the Lethal Weapon series without it, although it still fails the ultimate test of film music - making the listener unable to believe that either the music or the film existed before one another. In any case, I've certainly heard much worse soundtrack music in my lifetime, so I'll leave this lot be.

• Pan & Scan Version
• Trailer
• Biographies and Filmographies
• Film Flash (a euphemism for Warner Film Advertisements)
• Dual-sided formatting (with extras on the other side... this formatting still sucks no matter which way it is done)

• Single-layer, single-sided formatting

    The video quality is excellent, especially in comparison to the VHS version that hasn't been seen on store shelves for the better part of a decade. A houseguest I had over recently happily confirmed this fact by comparing a freeze-frame of Mel Gibson's buttocks with how she remembered the VHS version.

    The audio quality is also excellent by virtue of comparison, especially with the Dolby Digital remix. The use of a subwoofer alone puts a floor on the sound effects that makes the film just that little bit more exciting.

    Now, one would think, given how much money the Lethal Weapon franchise has made Warner Brothers, that they would be gracious enough to provide us with one measly extra. An audio commentary by Mel Gibson would have been especially welcome given how pivotal in his career this role was.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall

Lethal Weapon 2 (1989)

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General		Extras
Category	Action	Theatrical Trailer-1.78:1, 16x9, Dolby Digital 2.0 Featurette-Stunts and Action (3:49) Biographies-Cast & Crew
Rating
Year Of Production	1989
Running Time	109:45
RSDL / Flipper	No/No	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Programme
Region Coding	2,4	Directed By	Richard Donner
Studio Distributor	Warner Home Video	Starring	Mel Gibson Danny Glover Joe Pesci Joss Ackland Derrick O'Connor Patsy Kensit
Case	Amaray-Transparent
RPI	$29.95	Music	Michael Kamen Eric Clapton

Video		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	None	English Dolby Digital 5.1 (384Kb/s) French Dolby Digital 5.1 (384Kb/s) Italian Dolby Digital 5.1 (384Kb/s)
Widescreen Aspect Ratio	2.35:1
16x9 Enhancement
Video Format	576i (PAL)
Original Aspect Ratio	2.35:1	Miscellaneous
Jacket Pictures	No
Subtitles	English Arabic Dutch French Italian Portuguese Spanish English for the Hearing Impaired Italian for the Hearing Impaired	Smoking	Yes
		Annoying Product Placement	Yes, mildly
		Action In or After Credits	No

    The next night, the head of the syndicate for which the smugglers work comes to the decision that the head of the taskforce that just ate a big hole in their revenue, who just happens to be Murtaugh, should be "warned off". As a result, Captain Ed decides that his two wildest detectives could use a break from their regular assignments, so he assigns them to "babysit" a star witness until "all the red tape is processed". As luck, or at least bad lack for the audience, would have it, the star witness turns out to be Leo Getz (Joe Pesci), and audiences in 1989 weren't quite sure whether the bad guys or the good guys would shoot him first. After a bungled assassination attempt that results in Martin punching Leo in the face while half-submerged in the hotel's pool, Leo reveals that he is in the Witness Protection Program because he laundered half a billion dollars in drug money.

    Since our heroes have nothing better to do, they decide to go and check the drug dealers' headquarters out, which results in a hilarious encounter with the failed hitman and a surfboard. Naturally, our heroes come back to the house on stilts, leading their squad in a raid upon the premises, and it turns out that the drug dealers Leo remembers laundering money for and the Krugerand smugglers are the same people. Led by Arjen Rudd (Joss Ackland) and Pieter Vorstedt (Derrick O'Connor), the drug dealers turn out to be South African diplomats who hide behind their diplomatic credentials while making untold amounts of money from trading between drugs, dollars, and Krugerands. As the detectives are unable to arrest the smugglers due to the Diplomatic Relations Act, they leave the site empty-handed and about to draw more of Captain Ed's ire. As luck would have it, however, Riggs salvages a little good out of the situation by meeting Rika Van Den Haas (Patsy Kensit), Arjen's secretary. After that, the smugglers and our duo of mismatched detectives declare all-out war on each other, with results that are highly predictable since we have two more sequels to deal with.

    Although the series has definitely been showing signs of strain in the past two episodes, Lethal Weapon 2 is still rather fresh because it stays reasonably close to the tone of the original. Some have criticized the changes in Mel Gibson's character as being inconsistent with the original episode, but I can tell you with quite a certainty that it is actually very consistent with how a man who had nothing to lose changes when he suddenly finds a comrade he actually likes to work with and a family that is accepting and tolerant of him. The humour that has been infused into this episode is mostly an enhancement to the story, although I'm sure I'm not the only one who really wanted to join the South African smugglers as they beat the crap out of Leo. In any case, if you enjoyed the original episode, then this sequel will make a nice adjunct.

Video

    The transfer is sharp enough to be presentable, but the backgrounds and other such details that aren't the primary focus of the shot tend to look blurred and indistinct. The shadow detail is average, with a minimal amount of detail viewable in the darker parts of the shots. Although I have not seen this film in the theatre, I would hazard a guess that the amount of detail visible in the darkness was better when it was displayed in theatres. There is no low-level noise to spoil the image.

    The colour saturation of this film and its transfer follows the standard set by the previous film, with a muted a dull look that emphasizes the atmosphere of the story. There are no signs of misregistration, oversaturation, or undersaturation. Colour bleeding was a very slight problem when Riggs wore his red shirt, but this is the only specific problem with colour in the transfer.

    MPEG artefacts were a problem for this transfer, although it would have been nice if an extra layer had been used to preserve the sharpness of the background in a few shots. Film-to-video artefacts, especially aliasing, are a major problem for this transfer, with numerous linear objects shimmering dreadfully on numerous occasions. At 41:12, the top of a car door can be seen shimmering in spite of the fact that there is no apparent camera movement during this shot, and the shot of Riggs' caravan at 48:42 also contains a similar amount of aliasing in spite of a stationary camera. Telecine wobble is a minor problem, but I only became dimly aware of it when trying to focus on certain details started to give me a headache. Film artefacts consisted of numerous minor white marks on the image, as well as some black spots and a hair or two, but these were acceptable within the limits of an eleven-year-old film.

Audio

    The score music in this film is credited to Michael Kamen, Eric Clapton, and David Sanborn. The last of these three was added to this film for reasons I can only guess at, as the score music in this film sounds more or less the same as that of the previous film. In spite of this, the score music is still effective in this episode, lending more or less the right atmosphere to most of the proceedings. The lack of any pseudo-contemporary numbers such as in the nightclub scenes of the original film makes the score a little more immune to becoming dated.

    The surround channels are used frequently and aggressively to support the action sequences and the music, although it often seems like both channels are being used at once as you'd expect from a Pro-Logic mix. There are occasional moments when the sound field becomes biased towards the front channels, but like the lack of truly directional surround effects, this can be blamed upon the soundtrack that the film was released in theatres with, rather than the transfer itself. In spite of this, the soundtrack is moderately immersive and draws the viewer into the film quite nicely. The subwoofer had a wonderful time supporting the lower frequencies of the soundtrack, with music, gunshots, and explosions all blasting out of the LFE channel at regular intervals. The subwoofer did little to call any specific attention to itself.

Menu

Theatrical Trailer

Featurette - Stunts And Action

Cast And Crew Biographies

    The Region 4 and Region 1 standard versions of this disc misses out on;

• Full-Bitrate DTS Soundtrack
• Four minutes of additional footage
• RSDL Formatting

• Nothing

    The video quality is good, but suffers a noticeable problem with aliasing and shadow detail.

    The audio quality is good.

    The extras are limited.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall

Lethal Weapon 3 (1992)

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General		Extras
Category	Action	Biographies-Cast & Crew Theatrical Trailer-2 Production Notes
Rating
Year Of Production	1992
Running Time	113:05
RSDL / Flipper	No/No	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Programme
Region Coding	2,4	Directed By	Richard Donner
Studio Distributor	Warner Home Video	Starring	Mel Gibson Danny Glover Joe Pesci Rene Russo Stuart Wilson
Case	Amaray-Transparent
RPI	$29.95	Music	Michael Kamen Eric Clapton

Video		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	None	English Dolby Digital 5.1 (384Kb/s) French Dolby Digital 5.1 (384Kb/s) Italian Dolby Digital 5.1 (384Kb/s)
Widescreen Aspect Ratio	2.35:1
16x9 Enhancement
Video Format	576i (PAL)
Original Aspect Ratio	2.35:1	Miscellaneous
Jacket Pictures	No
Subtitles	English French Italian Dutch Arabic Spanish Portuguese English for the Hearing Impaired Italian for the Hearing Impaired	Smoking	Yes
		Annoying Product Placement	Yes, mildly
		Action In or After Credits	Yes, a quick joke at the end of the credits

    Nonetheless, the film begins with homicide detectives Roger Murtaugh (Danny Glover) and Martin Riggs (Mel Gibson) arriving at a building that has been cleaned out by the emergency services because there is a bomb in the parking lot. Martin figures that it's either a threat or a scare, but one of the firemen present declares it to be the real thing and introduces a man who actually saw the explosive device in the back seat of a car. Martin, figuring the witness simply saw some kind of electronic device in the back seat and mistook it for a bomb, drags Roger into the parking lot with him to check it out. Roger is meant to retire in a matter of days, so he simply wants to lay low and let the time go quietly, but Martin won't have a bar of it. Naturally, the device on the back seat of the car turns out to be a real bomb, and Martin sets to work on defusing it. Unfortunately, his attempt doesn't work as planned, and our two heroes just barely make it out of the building before it goes up in a blazing pillar of fire, just in time for the bomb squad to show up. Well, at least they managed to save the cat they found in the parking lot.

    This, of course, is one of the first disappointments of Lethal Weapon 3 - an opening stunt sequence that has nothing at all to do with the rest of the film. After the bomb sequence, we find our two heroes busted down to lowly patrolmen, presumably to give a lead-in for the next sequence that moves the story along. Why this demotion is in the slightest bit necessary for the plot, I have no idea, but the end result is a uniformed Martin and Roger chasing a pair of armoured car robbers along a highway. When they succeed in apprehending one of them, Captain Ed Murphy (Steve Kahan) reinstates them as detectives, much to the ire of Internal Affairs and their newly-introduced representative, Lorna Cole (Rene Russo). Together, they wander down to the interrogation room and discover the suspect they arrested from the armoured car robbery, Billy Phelps (Mark Pellegrino), has been shot.

    When the detectives try to determine who shot Billy and why, we see the first use of a convenient, however mildly so, plot device in this series: it seems that Internal Affairs installed cameras in the interrogation rooms of every station without their knowledge, and the one in this interrogation room reveals that Billy was shot by former police Lieutenant Jack Travis (Stuart Wilson). In case I didn't make it clear the first time, this is the first time the Lethal Weapon series has had an antagonist that I honestly expected Martin Riggs to chew up and spit out. In any case, Travis' criminal enterprise is relatively simple: every now and again, he breaks into the police vaults to steal weapons that were scheduled for destruction. Combining these weapons with armour-piercing ammunition, he sells them to various street-level distributors for a tidy profit, which he then invests back in the construction of a village full of townhouses. It certainly gives you food for thought when you pass by the latest urban sprawls and wonder exactly where the budget for construction is coming from.

    Anyway, in spite of having a less-than-threatening bad guy and an even more annoying Leo Getz (Joe Pesci), who gets taken care of in a highly amusing manner after being shot by Travis, the banter between the heroes keeps this episode entertaining. One exchange after Nick Murtaugh's (Damon Hines) conversation with his friend, Darryl (Bobby Wynn) is interrupted by Roger is hilarious enough to save the entire film by itself. "Word, Martin..." "Word, Roger..." "What the hell are we talking about, anyway?" Word, indeed!

Video

    The transfer is presented in an aspect ratio of 2.35:1, and it is 16x9 Enhanced. The transfer is the sharpest of the Lethal Weapon series, with more definition and clarity than even the original episode, which was transferred at a significantly later date. The shadow detail is also excellent, with plenty of subtle gradations between light and dark on offer, as opposed to the large expanses of black that dominated the previous two films to a small extent. There was no low-level noise or film grain evident in the image at any given time.

    The colour saturation in this transfer is warm and vibrant, which clashes quite severely with the dark and understated style that was a deliberate artistic choice in the previous two films. Indeed, friends of mine have referred to Lethal Weapon 3 as the episode where everything begins to look pretty at the expense of the story. Still, the colour saturation is consistent from start to finish, and there are no problems with undersaturation or bleeding.

    MPEG artefacts are not a serious problem for this transfer, save for the occasional moment such as at 37:33, where the background threatens to break out in a series of macro-blocks. Film-to-video artefacts consisted of some minor telecine wobble in the opening credits, and an occasional display of aliasing in car grilles and the edges of windows. Film artefacts are mildly problematic in this transfer, but there is only one instance of a seriously distracting artefact at 31:44, which is positioned and shaped in just such a manner that it could be confused with a reel change marking. It isn't actually a reel change marking, but I have no real idea of what it is, as it looks more like a pink oval with a black outline, which would be consistent with the interpositive being slightly overheated at this time and location in the film.

Audio

    The dialogue is mostly clear and easy to make out, although there are still one or two lines that are a little difficult to make out because of the actors' occasional mumbling, or some imperfect recording techniques. There were no perceptible problems with audio sync.

    The score music by Michael Kamen, Eric Clapton, and David Sanborn is starting to become a little weary and repetitious, mainly because there seems to be little distinction between the musical cues used in tense situations or lighter moments. I am extremely certain that if you blindfolded a viewer and played the musical cues from all four Lethal Weapon films at them, they would not be able to discern which film each of the scenes where the score is present are actually from. This is not necessarily bad, as the score music is still quite enjoyable, it just needs a little more variety.

    The surround channels are used aggressively to support the music and action sequences, and they create a reasonably immersive sound field in doing so. The surround channels seemed to be more actively involved in this film, with more directional effects and volume present in those channels. There were also less instances of the soundtrack collapsing into straight stereo or mono, with only one or two sequences being biased towards the front of the soundstage. The subwoofer was used frequently to support explosions, gunshots, and other action sequence effects, and it seemed to truly have a fun time with this film without calling any specific attention to itself.

Menu

Theatrical Trailer 1

Theatrical Trailer 2

Cast & Crew Biographies

    The Region 4 and Region 1 standard versions of this disc misses out on;

• Full-Bitrate DTS Soundtrack
• Three Minutes Of Extra Footage
• RSDL Formatting

    The video quality is very good, let down only by a little too much aliasing.

    The audio quality is also very good.

    The extras are limited.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall

Lethal Weapon 4 (1998)

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General		Extras
Category	Action	Theatrical Trailer-4 Featurette-Pure Lethal Interviews-Cast & Crew Unseen Footage-Lethal Weapon 1-3 Outtakes-Lethal Weapon 1-3 Biographies-Cast & Crew Featurette-B-Roll Footage
Rating
Year Of Production	1998
Running Time	122:12 (Case: 127)
RSDL / Flipper	Dual Sided	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Programme
Region Coding	2,4	Directed By	Richard Donner
Studio Distributor	Warner Home Video	Starring	Mel Gibson Danny Glover Joe Pesci Rene Russo Chris Rock Jet Li
Case	Amaray-Transparent
RPI	$29.95	Music	Michael Kamen Eric Clapton

Video		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	None	English Dolby Digital 5.1 (384Kb/s) French Dolby Digital 5.1 (384Kb/s) Italian Dolby Digital 5.1 (384Kb/s)
Widescreen Aspect Ratio	2.35:1
16x9 Enhancement
Video Format	576i (PAL)
Original Aspect Ratio	2.35:1	Miscellaneous
Jacket Pictures	No
Subtitles	English French Dutch Arabic Italian Portuguese Spanish English for the Hearing Impaired Italian for the Hearing Impaired	Smoking	Yes
		Annoying Product Placement	Yes, just a tiny bit
		Action In or After Credits	Yes, during credits

    The film starts with Martin Riggs (Mel Gibson) and Roger Murtaugh (Danny Glover) responding to an emergency in which some armoured lunatic is using an assault rifle and a flame-thrower to terrorize a sector of the inner city. Their merits as combat veterans rotating back into a life as policemen that made Lethal Weapon so interesting are gone, and the attempts at humour have reached a level that makes me very sick. Leo Getz (Joe Pesci) returns with his usual interjections of okays, but now the script adds another word to his vocabulary in the shape of "whatever". I presume this challenge was offered to Pesci when he got sick of the threats to have his tongue surgically excised for tormenting action fans with his constant okaying. Roger's daughter Rianne (Traci Wolfe) is carrying the baby of one young detective named Lee Butters (Chris Rock), and is married to him somehow without Roger knowing about it. Incidentally, Lorna Cole (Rene Russo), the character that somehow managed to save the previous sequel from the depths of sheer boredom, is reduced to a prop by this plot. She is listed in the fourth position in the credits, but she only seems to get about fifty minutes of screen time. What happened to the fierce detective who could take on five thugs at once with just her bare hands? Screenwriter Channing Gibson (no relation) should have been shot for penning this effort.

    Even if you only have a very mild interest in the Lethal Weapon series (as I do), I am sure you will join me in a wild chorus of agonizing disappointment with this instalment. The usual banter between the action scenes which made the other three films so much more enjoyable has been reduced to an annoyance in this episode because of the fact that Joe Pesci and Chris Rock are actually allowed to speak to one another. At least Joe Pesci has demonstrated that he has an ability to act, but this character will go down in memory as one of the most irritating in the history of cinema. We are even treated to material of such a low grade that it could honestly be construed as homophobic (the interaction between Murtaugh and Butters) and racist (Riggs' use of Murtaugh as a decoy in the opening sequence). Okay, so you have to be a little creative to see those parts of the script in that way, but the point is that the series has gone from a believable story involving the day-to-day antics of an emotionally ill character portrayed in a compelling way to one that will offend some sensitive minds. The only believable line spoken during this film is one by a Chinese triad member by the name of Wah Sing Ku (Jet Li) about the way in which Riggs behaves during his visit to a Chinese restaurant: "in Hong Kong, you'd be dead". By this time, this film is certainly dead to me in terms of story development. All the restored violence in the world (the theatrical release was only rated M) cannot save a film with a poor plot.

Video

    The transfer is presented in the original theatrical aspect ratio of 2.35:1, complete with 16x9 Enhancement. The transfer is generally very sharp, with plenty of detail on offer throughout most of the film, although backgrounds had a tendency to become soft and ill-defined during slower sequences. Shadow detail is also very good, with plenty of subtle detail on offer in all dimly-lit sections of the film, which is especially important given that the film's climax takes place in a barely-lit factory during the middle of the night. Low-level noise is not a real problem in this transfer, and neither is film grain.

    The colour saturation is not-so-slightly problematic in this transfer, especially during the first fifteen minutes of the film. Lethal Weapon 4 is by far the most heavily saturated episode in the series, making it somewhat at odds with the grimy, seedy look that was used during the other three episodes to set the proper atmosphere. During the opening sequence, the colours are oversaturated to the point of bleeding and becoming quite unpleasant to look at. This settled down for the rest of the film, but it still remains problematic and unsettling throughout, partly because it simply looks so far away from what one should expect from the series.

    MPEG artefacts are not a serious problem in this feature, which is surprising when you consider how demanding both the pace and settings of this film are. It is a wonder that there didn't seem to be any motion compensation artefacts during the fight sequences. Film-to-video artefacts were the biggest problem in this transfer, with many occurrences from all of the usual culprits, ranging from minor to somewhat distracting. Film artefacts were almost non-existent, as one would reasonably expect from a film of this recent vintage. There was one momentary series of vertical lines through the picture at 23:49 that may or may not be an MPEG artefact, but I am erring on the side of caution and labelling them as either film artefacts or marks that were somehow left on the picture during the telecine process. They are extremely distracting and the worst artefact of the transfer, and I am sure that Columbia Tristar would reject a pressing of one of their films that contained something which looks this bad.

    This disc is a flipper, with most of the extras on side B. Please don't bother to write me about how this technically doesn't make it a flipper because the end result is still the same - the disc is easy prey for the oil that secretes from your fingertips and palms, especially when someone not quite as careful as you or I gets their hands on it. While the formatting is not disruptive to the film, RSDL formatting would have been preferable since this would allow the film itself significantly more space to breathe.

Audio

    There are three soundtracks on this DVD, all of which are encoded in Dolby Digital 5.1 with a bitrate of 384 kilobits per second: the original English dialogue, with dubs in French and Italian. I listened to the default English soundtrack, and sampled a couple of passages in the Italian dub for a laugh.

    The dialogue was clear and easy to understand once the problematic first fifteen minutes of the film were out of the way. During those fifteen minutes when the video transfer was also quite a problem, the dialogue was muffled and unclear, as well as drowned out by ambient sound effects. This is rather annoying and tends to leave the average viewer in a perpetual state of wonder as to what was being said during this crucial time in the film, in spite of the fact that the quality of the dialogue is not much to write home about. The level of the dialogue improved after the first fifteen minutes, but it is a real pity that the same cannot be said for the quality of the dialogue, especially given that Chris Rock is introduced into the film after this point. There were no subjective problems with audio sync during the English dialogue, but the small handful of lines that are rendered in Chinese made me wonder if they were dubbed.

    The score music in this film is credited to Michael Kamen, Eric Clapton, and David Sanborn. Just as most of the magic from the other three films seems to be missing from the plot, it also seems to be missing from this score music. Repetition does not work, and this score music proves it, as there don't seem to be any distinct themes used here that made me sit up and notice their unique beauty. Indeed, for all I know to the contrary, all of the musical cues in this soundtrack could have simply been lifted from the previous episodes and simply served up again. Even a couple of scenes in the film seem to share the same musical cue, which is a very bad sign in my terms.

    The surround channels were very aggressively used to support the plethora of gunshot and explosion sounds, as well as the frequent musical cues and ambient effects. Although the surround channel usage is not that greatly improved compared to the remix of the original, the fidelity in the surround effects is greater simply because there was more of it to begin with. There are none of those instances in which the sound field collapses into mono or stereo, although there are times when the surround effects become quiet enough to miss. It is a terrible shame about the problems with the first fifteen minutes of the film, because this soundtrack is otherwise very highly enveloping and immersive. The subwoofer is very well-integrated into the overall soundtrack, putting a superb bottom end on the action, all without calling any specific attention to itself.

Menu

Cast & Crew Biographies

Featurette - Pure Lethal (30:36)

Featurette - Cut/Extended Scenes: Lethal Weapon 1, 2, and 3 (8:51, 4:14, and 3:44 respectively)

Cast & Crew Interviews

Featurette - B-Roll Footage (10:17)

Theatrical Trailers - Lethal Weapon, Lethal Weapon 2, Lethal Weapon 3, and Lethal Weapon 4

    The Region 4 version of this disc misses out on;

• Director's commentary

    Aside from some problems early on in the film, the video quality is very good.

    Aside from some problems early on in the film, the audio quality is also very good.

    The extras are comprehensive, lacking only a commentary track that makes it clear what a rush-job the script actually was, which was included on the Region 1 release.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall