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).