LOADED WEAPON 1, with Emilio Estevez, Samuel L. Jackson, Jon Lovitz, Tim Curry and Kathy Ireland. Directed by Gene Quintano. At UA Queensway. IN ITS never-ending wish to turn useless material into gold, Hollywood has found the proverbial philosopher's stone - movies which take the plot and the characters from a blockbuster film and recast them in a parody. National Lampoon's Loaded Weapon 1 is just such an animal. In the tradition of Airplane and The Naked Gun, Gene Quintano's film is a send-up of popular cinema, specifically the buddy-cop genre as personified by the Lethal Weapon series. Parody films like Loaded Weapon 1 are full of references to popular American film and television movies, and are often punctuated by cameo appearances by actors mocking the roles from which they became famous. And so if you have seen Lethal Weapon (and New Line cinema is betting you have) you will know the basic cast and plot of Loaded Weapon 1. Detective Jack Colt (Emilio Estevez) is a volatile, rebellious cop who is teamed up with the straight-laced Wes Luger (Samuel L. Jackson) in order to bust a gang of criminals who have discovered a way to turn cocaine into cookies. Led by the evil General Mortars (William Shatner), the criminals have decided to use The Wilderness Cookie Girls as a front for their operation, and have blackmailed the head of the cookie company, Miss Demeanor (played by the beautiful and remarkably untalented Kathy Ireland). But the plot is just a mild distraction to a series of comic vignettes. F. Murray Abraham's turn as Harold Leacher is a tight little send up of Sir Anthony Hopkins' Oscar-winning performance in Silence of the Lambs , while the interrogation of Miss Demeanor hilariously re-enacts the infamous Sharon Stone interrogation scene in Basic Instinct. Cameos abound throughout, with James Doohan popping in to do his famous Star Trek Scotty routine, while Charlie Sheen and Whoopie Goldberg, among others, have been persuaded to appear once again, as parody of themselves. Everyone enjoys watching Hollywood laugh at itself as long as they are in on the joke, but the problem with sending a profoundly American film like Loaded Weapon 1 to Hongkong is that most of the audience are unable to find reference points for the gags. This is low-risk, highly exploitative film making aimed at getting more money out of audiences who have already forked over the cash to watch the same movie done properly a year earlier. But, admittedly it is also entertaining fare for those willing to suspend their critical faculties for a while.