`WEAPON' SPARES NO SILLY MOVIE PARODY

                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SATURDAY, February 6, 1993                   TAG: 9302060265
SECTION: EXTRA                    PAGE: 4   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: CHRIS GLADDEN STAFF WRITER
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium
`WEAPON' SPARES NO SILLY MOVIE PARODY
"National Lampoon's Loaded Weapon 1" joins the ranks of such pinpoint parodies of movies as "Hot Shots," "Airplane" and "The Naked Gun."
These movies are coming out almost as fast as their targets. How much you'll respond to this one will probably depend on how large an appetite you have for silly sight gags, jokes geared to the dedicated commercial movie viewer and overall broad humor.
Either my appetite for this kind of send-up is diminishing or this outing isn't as sharp as the others. It contains a few chuckles, but the material is too thin to sustain its 90-minute length.
The "Lethal Weapon" series is its biggest target, but it also takes on such movies as "The Silence of the Lambs," "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles," "Basic Instinct," "Die Hard" and "Wayne's World."
Emilio Estevez plays Colt, the obligatory maverick cop with a death wish and a fixation on firepower. Samuel L. Jackson plays Luger, the reluctant partner with a cooler head.
The two are assigned to a case involving cocaine-filled cookies sold by "The Wilderness Girls" under the direction of the evil General Mortars played by William Shatner. In fact, this may be what "Star Trek" guys do in the off-season because James Doohan makes an appearance.
Kathy Ireland shows up as the Sharon Stone clone, and F. Murray Abraham has one of the more amusing moments as a Hannibal the Cannibal character.
For that matter, the whole movie is an exercise in cannibalism, gobbling up other movies as it goes along. Charlie Sheen, the brother of Estevez and the star of "Hot Shots," makes an appearance, and there are even references to "Hot Shots" itself, which at this very moment has a sequel on the horizon.

Loaded Weapon I: **
A New Line release at Salem Valley 8 (389-0004) and Valley View 6 (362-8219). Rated PG-13 for sexual references and cartoon violence; 90 minutes.

by Archana Subramaniam by CNB