1987: Lethal Weapon

  1989: Lethal Weapon 2

  1992: Lethal Weapon 3

I agree with Paul's ranking, but I would withdraw one or two stars from each. Especially the first two films were quite enjoyable action movies, but to consider them to have "revoulutionised action movies" is quite an over-statement. These films didn't revolutionize anything in this genre, but they did efficiently combine codes that were already very well established within the genre (both narrative as well as cinematographic codes). The action genre especially came to the fore during the late 60s and 70s. By the early 80s there was a sh*t load of quite mediocre action movies, some of which had some interesting - but not "revolutionary" innovations. The Leathal Weapon franchise had the good mix of action, comedy, good actors and an efficient rhythm, which made these films rise above the average. My preferred one is still the first one.

The more "revolutionizing" ones would be, in my opinion, the Mission Impossible franchise, some Paul Verhoeven films, the Bourne Identity franchise, and although I love - and maybe even prefer - the Die Hard films, even these didn't revolutionize the genre...

Now, for your pleasure, an early "action" movie  (the genre didn't exist yet in the cinema vocabulary at that time) from 1913, combining action, romance, cross-cutting... that was more "revolutionary" (but not the first one - e.g. - to use cross-cutting, which came about some 6, 7 years earlier)...

Barney Oldfield's Race For Life (1913):

Did you know that if you pause, and then step forward in single frame mode, the scene at the beginning of the movie where the girl falls onto the car, you can catch a single frame as she just touches it and you see the "air bag" with a car graphic starting to wrinkle.

Ahhh...sweet  movie magic.

But it still ranks as the best of the series with the 2nd one coming in just under it. By the third outing it was getting tired.

Best line from that movie, "Get that sh*t off my lawn!"

The Lethal Weapon franchise is, for me, a perfect example of a franchise hanging around too long . They should have stopped at 2. 

Shooting begins later this year!

Hi,

I watched 1 and 2, mostly for Mel Gibson, but already by that time I was completely out of the "hero" thing in Hollywood, and was heavily involved in foreign film and music. Somehow, the stuff with Mel was not that important or valuable to my watching experience. it wasn't about "excitement" or "action" that I watched and listened to a lot of things ... it was something else.

It was also at the time that I stopped watching "top ten" selling films, for the most part ... everything that was a seller in America, was not that great and the only thing they had going for them, was the money they made, and I lost interest ... the art was not important and the art of it all was disdained altogether.

Starring Emilio Estevez (Charlie Sheen's brother) as Martin Riggs - a cop on the edge. He's dangerous, a menace, a loose cannon. a walking time-bomb! Also starring Samuel L. Jackson - that guy from The Matrix.