It’s darn near sacrilegious to reboot “The Naked Gun” without David Zucker.
The comic maestro gave us three glorious “Gun” movies that captured his iconic, rapid-fire style. The first film’s umpire sequence is one of the funniest moments in any ’80s comedy.
But funny is funny. And “The Naked Gun,” the Zucker-less reboot of the comic series, delivers a steady stream of laughs in a style that’s close enough to the master’s blueprint.
It’s not the same, and the new “Gun” can’t match the howls provided by Zucker’s 1988 “Gun,” but it’s been too long since we laughed this hard in a theater.
Liam Neeson takes over as Frank Drebin, Jr., son of Leslie Nielsen’s cop from the original saga. He’s just as clueless as his pappy, and he has a “Dirty Harry”-like disdain for the rules.
The opening sequence teems with comic violence, a far cry from Zucker’s zany original. Things improve dramatically from there, especially when Pamela Anderson enters the frame.
She plays Beth Davenport, a grieving sister who thinks her brother’s death wasn’t a suicide. Lt. Drebin is on the case, one that leads him to a sketchy tech billionaire (Danny Huston, avoiding any Elon Musk comparisons) who might be part of the coverup.
That’s all you need to set the crush of jokes in motion. And, once again, it’s a nonstop barrage of sight gags, running gags, silly gags, and bawdy gags.
Some, not all, land hard. A few miss by a country mile. Yet the percentages work in our favor. It’s also refreshing to see a comedy that pokes fun at the so-called Male Gaze™ without flinching.
Woke takes another hit with this reboot. That matters.
Credit the curvaceous Anderson, whose breathy voice is perfect for her character and the overall tone. This is an old-school comedy with minor tweaks for GenZ-Nation, including that violent shtick that would make Team Zucker shudder.
It’s hardly enough to chase longtime “Gun” fans away or anyone who misses big-screen movie comedies. They’ll be snorting about too much over the tart screenplay, partially credited to director Akiva Schaffer (“Pop Star: Never Stop Never Stopping”).
The silver-haired Nielsen spent years as the stoic straight man in films like “Forbidden Planet.” Throwing him into the “Naked Gun” chaos proved a master stroke.
Here, Neeson’s action resume offers a similar perk. He can’t wait to deconstruct his tough-guy image, and it makes the jokes funnier. CCH Pounder clicks as Drebin’s no-nonsense boss, but the great Paul Walter Hauser needs more screentime as our hero’s partner.
Perhaps the best part of “The Naked Gun” is its running time – 86 tight minutes. That’s what a comedy should aim for – a not-so-hidden message to the team behind “Happy Gilmore 2: We Needed Two Hours to Include All the Gratuitious Cameos.”
Get in. Get out. Leave us laughing.
“The Naked Gun” clears that low bar. Hopefully, it’s a sign of very funny things to come.
HiT or Miss: “The Naked Gun” apes the comic chaos created by David Zucker in the ’80s. The results, while imperfect, are undeniably funny.
Police Squad is what spawned Naked Gun. I still think those 6 episodes are funnier than any of the movies. And you can watch them on the Internet Archive now.
I have been waiting for this review. I love comedies, especially anarchic ones, and I was hoping this would be worth seeing. To me, the last funny comedy in theaters would be The Hangover.