While I've enjoyed the original Naked Gun movies (well, some more than others), I never thought they were ever as funny as Police Squad!, the original TV series they were based on. It may be because I'd seen all the movies' best jokes in that original show. But it also may be that working within the content constraints of network television forced Zucker-Abrahams-Zucker to be more creative with their humor; they couldn't just fall back on dick and tit jokes (and if they did, they had to be sneaky about it).
So I wasn't, one the one hand, outraged that Paramount was trying to reboot the movie when this new The Naked Gun was announced. But I wasn't particularly excited about it either. Now having seen it, I can still say the TV show is the best version out there, but this reboot is no worse than any of the previous movies.
Liam Neeson plays Frank Drebin Jr., son of the Frank Drebin played by Leslie Nielsen in the original franchise. And yes, that doesn't make a lot of sense since the last film came out in 1994 and Liam Neeson is 73 years old. But a Naked Gun movie is not where you go for continuity, or really, sense of any kind.
Drebin's latest case involves a suicide that is likely murder, a billionaire named Richard Cane (Danny Huston), who may be responsible, and the victim's sister, Beth (Pamela Anderson), an author who "writes true crime novels based on fictional stories that [she] makes up."
Neeson is essentially playing a version of the tough guy he's been playing over and over again since the film Taken, and his deadpan delivery is, of course, perfect for the film. Pamela Anderson also handles the material deftly. The key to a movie like this is a combination of playing it completely straight but with comedic timing, and they're both great at it.
Some jokes land (the coffee gag never stops being funny), and some definitely don't (the heat vision gag goes on way too long) but there are enough of them in the film's barely 90 minute running time that you'll still probably laugh more than you have watching any other recent studio comedy.
Two bits, one involving a discussion of the Black Eyed Peas, and another involving a TiVo, had me howling, but were so like discussions some of my friends and I would have had in 2004 that I actually wondered if I knew any of the writers (I don't). But my favorite joke, which hearkens back to the classic "Cigarette?" "Yes, I know" exchange that originated in Airplane!, is when Drebin enters a party hosted by Richard Cane and Cane greats him with an outstretched hand and "Frank Drebin!," to which Drebin replies, "Me too!"
OK, maybe you had to be there. Which brings me to the final thing I'll say about The Naked Gun. One theory about why Police Squad! only lasted six episodes is because viewers wouldn't give the show their complete attention, missing the majority of the show's humor (or understanding that it was supposed to be a comedy at all). Similarly, The Naked Gun is not a movie you should watch on streaming while looking at your phone. So get yourself to a theater and take a seat.
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