Angst? What Angst?: Rianne's high school boyfriend is killed right in front of her before she's kidnapped by special forces mercenaries. Later at a hostage swap, she's in the middle of a gunfight where men are killed all around her before she takes off in a car (with a dead body in the passenger seat), possibly leaving her father to die before they reacquire her. She then watches them torture her dad. When that doesn't work, she's threatened with rape before Riggs saves them in another violent firefight. This should probably lead to years of therapy and PTSD. By the end of the movie she's back to her usual self, and never seems to suffer any ramifications going forward.
Contested Sequel: Whilst the first two movies are by and large considered buddy-cop/action classics, 3 and 4 are much more divisive. To some they are installments that have reached the point of self-parody in terms of their level of goofiness with things like the continued presence and pushing into center stage of the Leo Getz character as well as not having as strong of scripts after the departure of Shane Black. Whilst to others they while not as good as the first two are solid entries that continue to show off the great chemistry between its leads, match if not up the ante in at least some of the action scenes, and rounds off the story-arcs of its characters well. Particularly Riggs who finishes his progression from a crazed suicidal man to a more down to earth and at peace guy who can move on with his life and allow himself to be happy.
Crazy Is Cool: Riggs. "You think I'm crazy? You think I'm crazy, I'll show you crazy!" *proceeds to slap himself in the face multiple times while wailing like Curly from The Three Stooges, pokes the drug dealer in the eyes, slaps the other drug dealers, and pulls out a gun.
Evil Is Cool: Mr. Joshua, Pieter Vorstedt and Wah Sing Ku.
Memetic Mutation: Danny Glover has always been, and will always be, getting too old for this shit. Also, if you made it through the early 90s without hearing people quote "They FUCK YOU at the drive-thru!" everywhere you went, you must have been in a coma.
Joshua in the first movie crosses it when he kidnaps Rianne.
Vorstedt in the second movie crosses it when he drowns Rika, and later reveals that he was the one who killed Riggs's wife.
Travis in the third movie crosses it when he either drowns one of his own men in cement, or when he kills a rookie cop, Edwards, in a shootout at the police station on the cop's birthday, no less.
My Real Daddy: Many fans and critics credit the series' quality and success to writer Shane Black. However, many of the series' signature elements, including the humor, were added by Jeffrey Boam in his uncredited rewrites to the first film and screenplays to the second and third. Black's original treatments were considerably Darker and Edgier than the final product, with the character of Riggs being an unstable psychopath killed off at the end of the second film.
Only the Creator Does It Right: Shane Black was only involved with the first two films. The first is considered a classic, while the second is widely considered the best of the sequels. The third and fourth films are somewhat divisive.
A not too drastic example, but most noticeable with part 4.
They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character: Plenty of fans liked the Mauve Shirt detectives from the second film (a colorful bunch played by some notable action movie actors) and would have liked to see them to play bigger roles in that movie or (if more than one of them had survived it) the franchise in general.
Vindicated by History: 3 & 4 are much more fondly looked on nowadays. They aren't as popular as 1 or 2, but general consensus is that the quality of the sequels is much more consistent than othersequelsto '80sactionfilms.
