Lethal Weapon

In his mock drafts, in his most private of thoughts, in his scribblings on napkins, Bob Weinhauer told himself there was no way. The kid was too good, too versatile, too appealing to the talent-hungry NBA teams holding the 31 picks ahead of the 76ers in last night's NBA draft. Brian Oliver, the third partner in "Lethal Weapon 3" from Georgia Tech? There was no way. Yes, there was. The sweet, 6-4 guard whom Weinhauer described as "the closest thing to a young Joe Dumars" in the talent pool became the Sixers' draft gemstone.

I'd like to nominate an unconventional candidate for 2011 Fantasy MVP. No, it's not Aaron Rodgers, who has been consistently outstanding all season. It's not LeSean McCoy, who tops the running back rankings with 1,482 total yards and 17 touchdowns - five more than his nearest competitor. Nor is it Wes Welker, who leads all receivers with 100 receptions and 1,339 yards, plus nine TDs. Rather, my choice is Welker's teammate, Rob Gronkowski - the most lethal tight end in the business.

Essentially a Three Stooges comedy with blood, Lethal Weapon 2 is, like its first installment, a furiously fast and funny mismatched-cop caper that produces more laughs and adrenalin than is probably good for you. Like a lot of things that aren't good for you, it's awfully enjoyable. When the projector broke during the screening - right after the ripsnorting chase sequence that opens the film - the audience heaved a collective sigh, glad to catch its breath. It would be the last gasp of oxygen for nearly two hours of warp-speed pursuit and pistol-whipping showdowns during which L.A. officers Murtaugh (Danny Glover)

The summer movie season gets a suitable kickoff with "Lethal Weapon 3," an action movie perennial that features lots of violence, a few laughs and a crowd-pleasing cameo from Mel Gibson's bottom. The makers of "Lethal Weapon" have smartly built on the central relationship between detectives Riggs and Murtaugh (Gibson and Danny Glover, respectively), adding new characters to keep the movies fresh, to a degree. The first sequel featured a comic supporting role for Joe Pesci, playing a pesky civilian sidekick.

It's official. The ledgers have been ledged, the computers have computed and 1992's Top 10 box office hits have been declared. They are, in descending order: Batman Returns ($163 million); Home Alone 2: Lost in New York ($145.8 million - and now busy racking up '93 dollars); Lethal Weapon 3 ($144.7 million); Sister Act ($139.6 million); Wayne's World ($121.6 million); Basic Instinct ($117.2 million); Aladdin ($114.8 million and still counting), A League of Their Own ($107.4 million)

Seeking to rekindle a spark in its franchise burned-out cop Martin Riggs, Lethal Weapon 4 opens with a guy in a bulletproof suit brandishing a flamethrower on a Los Angeles street. He fails to torch Mel Gibson, but does ignite a loaded fuel tanker, a gas station, and most of a city block. Why is he doing this? Is he a berserk pyromaniac or simply a man having trouble getting his cigarette going on a windy night? Because this is a Lethal Weapon movie, you can go figure. Writer Channing Gibson and director Richard Donner have already moved Riggs (Gibson)

Among the slew of 1989 movies that carried numbers as part of their names, Lethal Weapon 2 was notable on two counts: It earned more money than its predecessor and it received generally favorable reviews. That may seem modest as achievements go, yet most sequels fail on both counts. Still, it's easy to see why Hollywood is so enamored of them: A sequel is a form of pre-packaged entertainment built around a premise already familiar to moviegoers. It feeds off its predecessor's popularity, even when the name - The Sting II is a prime example - is the only thing the sequel has in common with the original.

DANNY BRIERE did not hesitate. He cannot remember the last time life was this good. Even though he has missed three games due to suspension, Briere leads the Flyers with 14 goals, he is completely healthy, and - for the first time in a long time - everything is falling into place off the ice. For the last 2 years, Briere struggled with a divorce that he admits sometimes affected his play. But the Flyers' highest-paid player - and at times, most lethal weapon - says that's behind him. "There were a lot of things going on that probably didn't go the way I wanted to," Briere said in a candid November interview.

In the five years that separate Lethal Weapon from Lethal Weapon 3, there have been enough burned-out cops in movies to constitute a fire hazard. Mel Gibson is now reduced to trying to light up his third noisy outing as Marty Riggs by giving up smoking. But the spark of ignition is missing from Lethal Weapon 3 - an outing that follows the formula of its hugely successful predecessors without matching their caliber. The decline and the mail-it-in feel of the performances and script were perhaps to be expected.

Using the standards set by the original, "Lethal Weapon 2" is a better movie - better because it is noisier, bloodier and more preposterous. The sequel is more streamlined. It is not weighed down by a plot or by extraneous characters (people without guns). And "2" offers more of the stuff that made "Lethal Weapon" a huge hit - violence. The people who made Part 2 say they've cut down on the violence. That is a big fib. In this action-drenched sequel, we see people killed by exploding home entertainment units, exploding swimming-pool accessories and a carpenter's nail gun. There's one chain strangulation, one drowning, one smash-the-head- repeatedly-with-the-car-door killing and one attempted murder via an exploding toilet.

ONE of the lunkheads who has organized an armed sit-in of a Delco Applebee's says that if we are afraid of guns, it just means we need more education about them. Dozens of people licensed to openly carry their guns are planning to show up at the restaurant tomorrow to make people more aware of the law that allows them to advertise the fact they're carrying. So if you're intimidated by a restaurant filled with armed people who insist on showing you they're armed, it means that you're just dumb?

I'd like to nominate an unconventional candidate for 2011 Fantasy MVP. No, it's not Aaron Rodgers, who has been consistently outstanding all season. It's not LeSean McCoy, who tops the running back rankings with 1,482 total yards and 17 touchdowns - five more than his nearest competitor. Nor is it Wes Welker, who leads all receivers with 100 receptions and 1,339 yards, plus nine TDs. Rather, my choice is Welker's teammate, Rob Gronkowski - the most lethal tight end in the business.

SEATTLE - This isn't Pop Warner. This isn't JV football, or high school or even college. This is business. DeSean Jackson is an asset. He is an underperforming asset, and, at $600,000, embarrassingly underpaid. He also is selfish and churlish. Isolationist. Cowardly. So what? Pay him. This is the NFL. There is no lesson to be taught by staring down an immature nonprofessional. He is too valuable. He is irreplaceable. Jackson wants a long-term, big-money contract extension.

A Mel Gibson movie opening on Friday the 13th - if you're into omens (where are we on the Mayan calendar?), this can't be good. Certainly "The Beaver" is grappling with a box-office curse - the taint of rant-prone Mel, making his first movie appearance since pleading no contest to charges that he abused his girlfriend. There was never much hope that "The Beaver" was going to make "Lethal Weapon" dollars. The script sat unproduced in Hollywood for years, reputed to be well-written but too weird for general audiences.

DANNY BRIERE did not hesitate. He cannot remember the last time life was this good. Even though he has missed three games due to suspension, Briere leads the Flyers with 14 goals, he is completely healthy, and - for the first time in a long time - everything is falling into place off the ice. For the last 2 years, Briere struggled with a divorce that he admits sometimes affected his play. But the Flyers' highest-paid player - and at times, most lethal weapon - says that's behind him. "There were a lot of things going on that probably didn't go the way I wanted to," Briere said in a candid November interview.

Christopher B. Craig, one of former State Sen. Vincent J. Fumo's most loyal aides and widely considered among the best legal minds in the Capitol, has resigned from the Senate staff after 16 years. Craig, who is credited with writing the landmark 2004 law that legalized slot machines in Pennsylvania, said yesterday that he resigned from his $158,300-a-year post as a top lawyer for Senate Democrats to explore other job opportunities. But several sources familiar with the matter said Craig resigned after learning that he would not continue as chief counsel to Democrats on the Senate Appropriations Committee and would be reassigned to a lower legal post.

Secrets run in the Whitfield family. They also walk, pratfall and crash into the L.A. River. This Christmas, Ma'Dere (Loretta Devine), matriarch of the clan, looks forward to seeing all six of her broods together for the first time in years. Before they arrive, though, she asks Joe (Delroy Lindo), her live-in love, to move his clothes into the garage so she can maintain the fiction that he is just a friend. A holiday evergreen set in the Los Angeles neighborhood of West Adams, This Christmas is a family reunion comedy with appealing, if familiar, characters and a soundtrack upbeat as its story.

There are lots of ways to measure success in the world of professional sports. Longevity is one of them. It's really quite simple: If you're good enough, you stick around. If you're not, you move on. Donovan McNabb has stuck around. Only Green Bay's Brett Favre, Indianapolis' Peyton Manning and Tennessee's Steve McNair have been the starting quarterback for their current teams longer than McNabb, and it appears as if McNair's run with the Titans is close to the end. "It does mean something," McNabb said yesterday after the Eagles staged a full-squad minicamp workout at the NovaCare Complex.

Like most of his teammates last night on the Allen Iverson Celebrity All-Stars, 6-foot-6 Andre Iguodala possessed a sizable strike zone. Although he resembled a baseball player in his brown San Diego Padres throwback jersey with Tony Gwynn's name and No. 19 on the back, Iguodala has had his mind on nothing but basketball this summer. The swingman who started every one of the 76ers' 87 regular-season and playoff games last season has been working on becoming more of an offensive force, working hard on his jumper and on creating shots within the offense.