Lethal Weapon (2016)

It's pretty damn good: sharply drawn characters, snappy dialogue, and awesome action sequences. I'm not sure that Clayne Crawford (Rectify) and Damon Wayans Sr. are going to make anybody forget Mel Gibson and Danny Glover, but they'll be more than good enough for the large audience that's never seen the four films, the last of which is nearly two decades old.

These two don't just have chemistry. They have a script that reintroduces Roger Murtaugh and Martin Riggs as characters who are as interesting facing each other across a dinner table as they are during a shootout or car chase.

The plotting and action in this version of Lethal Weapon may not offer much reason to tune in every week, but the Riggs/Murtaugh dynamic pops almost as well as it did on the big screen.

Ridiculous, yes, but it’s a show that is honest about itself, with a surprisingly endearing performance from Crawford. The question, of course, is: Did the world really need another “Lethal Weapon”?

Actually, the casting is pretty great and works well. Everything else about the show is pretty much what you'd expect. There are some fun action scenes and attempts at pathos, especially around Riggs and the death of his pregnant wife that's turned him into such a loose cannon. But Lethal Weapon also feels extremely familiar.

Crawford and Wayans display little rapport. That leaves racing cars, speeding bullets and wannabe wit to prop up an essentially superfluous show.

Lethal Weapon is a near-catastrophic failure. It’s the kind of overbearingly self-serious, sheepishly crass retelling of a story that no one needed to be repeated that we’ve come to expect from similar movie-to-TV adaptations.