Reviewers and bloggers are so happy to have a comedy, and a seemingly irreverent one, that they’re jumping up and down for “Naked Gun 2025.”
The bad news is that the reboot is a pale reminder of the Zucker-Abrams-Zucker movies we all loved so much, like “Airplane!” and the original “Naked Gun.”
The good news is that Liam Neeson gets a chance to send up his mostly preposterous resume of hard core melodramas in which he plays a detective trying to avenge a dead wife and save a kidnapped daughter (or some play on all that).
The other good news is that Pamela Anderson, fresh off her dramatic star turn in “The Last Showgirl,” is wearing makeup, looks like a million bucks, and is funny as heck. She also gets to show off her zany side with self-awareness. Her scene stealer is when she must fake being a confident jazz singer on stage. It’s comedy magic that actually hearkens back to the original films.
Unlike the original ZAZ movies, this “Naked Gun” attempts clever but but doesn’t often hit the target. A lot of the movie comes off as crude and scatological where it could have been much more sharply amusing. A lot of sequences don’t pay off. About halfway through, “Naked Gun” loses momentum and struggles to find a way home.
Some things are downright weird, like a split second cut to an unrecognizable Priscilla Presley, who was late star Leslie Nielsen’s romantic foil in the original movies.
But there are funny enough jokes to propel the first 45 minutes or so. Some of them have already been seen in the trailers. I liked the “take a chair” bit better in the commercial, frankly, because it’s cut to make sense. In the movie, there’s too much time between the set up and the payoff.
A lot of the really clever stuff in the ZAZ movies was kind of MAD Magazine material. Contrasting jokes in the foreground and background of a scene don’t really work here. I was disappointed that director Akiva Schaffer didn’t take advantage more of that element. A background sign in one scene just says something like “No Parking” when you’re hoping it will contain a sight gag.
There are nice tributes to Nielsen and George Kennedy, and the uncomfortable nod to OJ Simpson (again, seen in the trailer, so not a surprise). Again, seeing Liam Neeson is ridiculous situations is a lot of fun. But some of the gags — like constantly breaking phones or eating props — repeated way too often. What’s missing, though, is the ZAZ whimsy that made the original films so endearing.
The main thing is, the new “Naked Gun” is a relief from the painful political real life drama around us, and from the seriousness of every movie that’s come down the pike recently. Neeson’s Frank Drebin never stops to ponder the universe, there’s no navel gazing super hero stuff. He just keeps plodding along, unafraid to embarrass himself in the pursuit of an ending. It’s silly, and stupid, but I’ll bet word of mouth is great simply as a much needed salve this summer.
Suggestion: go back and see “Airplane!” and 1988’s “Naked Gun.”
