Director: Akiva Schaffer
Cast: Liam Neeson, Pamela Anderson, Paul Walter Hauser, Danny Huston
Have I Seen It Before: Nope! Might have seen it in theaters, but time is finite, and certain movies only play at certain theaters. Such is life. Really looked forward to it showing up on Paramount +, though.
Yes, I am ashamed.
Did I Like It: Great comedies surprise you. So, maybe, The Naked Gun isn’t that great. I think any film that dusts off the now ancient joke of lowering a Spirit Halloween sign on a place recently closed is content with somewhat limited ambitions.
Truly awful comedies tend to give you all of their best bits in trailers and clips, hoping that they can paper over deficiencies in hopes of a better-than-expected opening weekend. The OJ joke? It’s there*. The bit with the chili dogs? Check. I even tripped over a clip of an truly odd sequence where Frank Drebin Jr. (Neeson) is absolutely inconsolable after Beth (Anderson) accidentally re-connects his TiVo to the internet, thereby expiring a cache of Buffy the Vampire Slayer episodes. I really would have like to come into that bit cold.
And yet, I kind of enjoyed it.
Maybe I was able to be aware that throughout the film I was laughing about as much as I did throughout any of the three Leslie Nielsen-starring original films. Judged by its own standards, this new Naked Gun doesn’t feel like an ill-considered notion, and it entertains plenty. That might have something to do with Neeson in the main role. Like the 1980s rehabilitation of Nielsen from respectable leading-man to the goofiest man who ever lived, bringing the late-stage Neeson action persona into a goofy comedy works. At some point, Ed Helms circled the leading role, and he would have been dreadful, coming originally from comedy as he did. One might yearn for a Jon Hamm, but we already know he’s funny. Let Neeson have his turn.
*Credit where credit is due that they didn’t keep going back to that well, and I might have forgiven them if they had.