Lethal Weapon 2 (1989)
DIRECTOR: Richard Donner
CAST:
Mel Gibson, Danny Glover, Joe Pesci, Joss Ackland, Derrick O’Connor, Patsy Kensit, Darlene Love, Traci Wolfe, Steve Kahan, Mary Ellen Trainor
REVIEW:
Stepping off the launching pad of 1987’s Lethal Weapon , 1989’s Lethal Weapon 2 is an entirely worthy sequel that in many ways actually improves on the first installment while keeping all of the same qualities. The action is bigger and more audacious, the chemistry between Mel Gibson and Danny Glover is as great as ever, and the addition of Joe Pesci adds a third spoke to the wheel that freshens things up instead of simply retreading the Riggs-Murtaugh bickering from the first film. Rare for a sequel, Lethal Weapon 2 feels just as fresh, or maybe even more so, than the original. Continue reading
Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989)
DIRECTOR: Steven Spielberg
CAST:
Harrison Ford, Sean Connery, Allison Doody, Denholm Elliott, John Rhys-Davies, Julian Glover, Michael Byrne, River Phoenix
REVIEW:
After the general disappointment over Temple of Doom —and the film’s occasional weirdness — Last Crusade, as if deciding to play it safe, takes us back into familiar territory: Indy revisits the deserts of the Middle East in search of an ancient legendary religious artifact, the Nazis are once again the bad guys, Denholm Elliott’s Marcus Brody and John Rhys-Davies’ Sallah return, and the most exciting and extended action sequence is a duel between Indy and the Nazis in the desert. To help avoid making Last Crusade seem like too much of a retread of Raiders of the Lost Ark , we have Sean Connery thrown into the mix as Indy’s never-before-seen father. To this end, while it’s neither as original nor as fresh as Raiders of the Lost Ark, The Last Crusade is a marked improvement over Temple of Doom with a higher energy level, and the father-son relationship opens the door to some fresh material that adds a welcome spark.