Lethal Lampoon

It's about time Van Damme, Gibson, Stallone, and the rest of the macho fantasy boys got a good beating.

It comes at the hands of Emilio Estevez and Samuel L. Jackson in the satirical Loaded Weapon 1. This goofy pair of police partners (Colt and Luger, of course -- one trigger-happy, the other strictly by-the-book) snipe at the rampant machismo, stylisic excesses, and familiar contrivances of police action/sexual obsession movies from Lethal Weapon to 48 Hours to Silence of the Lambs. Model Kathy Ireland takes down Sharon Stone's infamous wink at Michael Douglas, F. Murray Abraham parodies Anthony Hopkins to a T, and director Gene Quintano (Why Me?) wrecks so many cars, breaks so much glass, and machine-guns so many houses that stuntmen and the prop department must have been hard pressed to keep up with the episodic madness.

Like the other National Lampoon spoofs and the Naked Gun series, this one hits and misses, but you might particularly enjoy Estevez's "unmotivated butt in the moon-beam walk," Ireland's comic come-ons, Bruce Willis's uncredited cameo, and the whole ongoing number about departed partners.Amid the cascade of puns, traves-ties, and jibes, there's some real fun for devoted action movie fans, as well as those who hope strutting Steven Seagal never darkens their local theater again. In short: Cheap thrills.