
In the wake of his former partner's gruesome murder, the experienced LAPD Detective, Wes Luger, finds himself following a faint trail of crumbs, in the last, and most important, case of his career. Now, to catch the elusive killer, Wes reluctantly teams up with Jack Colt, a grieving loner and loose cannon, and no movie franchise is safe--including Lethal Weapon (1987), Dirty Harry (1971), Die Hard (1988), and The Silence of the Lambs (1991). Before long, the seductively crypt... (Full plot summary below)
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In the wake of his former partner's gruesome murder, the experienced LAPD Detective, Wes Luger, finds himself following a faint trail of crumbs, in the last, and most important, case of his career. Now, to catch the elusive killer, Wes reluctantly teams up with Jack Colt, a grieving loner and loose cannon, and no movie franchise is safe--including Lethal Weapon (1987), Dirty Harry (1971), Die Hard (1988), and The Silence of the Lambs (1991). Before long, the seductively cryptic owner of the Wilderness Girls Cookie factory, Miss Demeanor, becomes embroiled in a dangerous criminal conspiracy orchestrated by the nefarious Vietnam War veteran, General Mortars, and the bullets start flying. Can the mismatched duo thwart ruthless Mortars' master plan? Do they deserve a sequel?
Leave your thoughts about National Lampoon's Loaded Weapon 1.
| Entertainment WeeklyOwen GleibermanA raucous parody of bodies-through-the-plate-glass-window action flicks, the movie has been made in a slavish but pedestrian imitation of the Zucker, Abrahams, and Zucker house style. |
| VarietyLawrence CohnMore an imitation than a parody, this would-be comedy is very short on laughs and gives away virtually all of them in its coming-attractions trailer. |
| New York TimesVincent CanbyWatching "Loaded Weapon 1" is like playing Trivial Pursuit with experts. It's exhausting. |
| Radio TimesJohn FergusonThis bid by the National Lampoon team to cash in with some Naked Gun-style spoofery lacks the brainless invention of the latter films, but still manages to score quite a few laughs. |
| Portland OregonianTed MaharBut the Lethal Weapon films, with their hyperbolic explosiveness, lurid repartee, and quasi-loco Mel Gibson hero, are already winking at the audience. (Last year’s spoofy, ragtag Lethal Weapon 3 practically turned its own slovenliness into a running gag.) The only way to make light of them is to exaggerate the cartoon funkiness that’s already at the center of their appeal. It’s no wonder this Weapon ends up shooting blanks. |
| Boston GlobeJay CarrThere may not be a laugh every minute, but there are enough to satisfy most devotees of the relentlessly silly, tasteless school of parody. |
| Chicago TribuneClifford TerryThere is enough material to provide grins and, sometimes, guffaws. Along the way, there are jokes and sight gags involving convenience-store robberies, ocean debris, dandruff commercials, Bartlett's "Familiar Quotations," frequent-flyer miles, Nazis, Ninja Turtles, Oprah, Mike Tyson and Mr. Potato Head. And, of course, the favorite targets of this particular genre: mimes and doughnut-eating cops. |
| ReelViewsJames BerardinelliBasically, this film is stale -- as unappetizing as week-old bread. With much better fare of this sort available on video (Airplane, The Naked Gun, etc.), renting a tape will be more satisfying, not to mention cost-effective. Loaded Weapon 1 is good for a few laughs, but there's no compelling reason to spend $5+ to see such a feeble feature-length comedy. |
| USA TodayMike ClarkObviously, gags rather than plot are central to a movie like LOADED WEAPON, but even so, neither the writing nor the acting is strong enough here. Estevez and Jackson are adequate as deadpan actors who remain oblivious to the chaos around them, but they lack the super-straight persona that makes Leslie Nielsen so effective as a dimwitted cop in the NAKED GUN movies. Often the jokes seem to barely squeak over their heads when they should fly. |
| Chicago Sun-TimesRoger EbertThis is a would-be comedy that's not as funny (nor as satirical) as the movies that inspired it. |