Sacrilege! Were my first thoughts upon hearing about this reboot. We all know Hollywood has a bad record when it comes to reboots, especially when it comes to reboots of classics, especially comedies. Their recent track record for reboots, remakes, and late-in-the-day sequels or prequels isn't the best either. But did we REALLY need a reboot/sequel to this classic spoof franchise? How on Titan could you even go about replacing Leslie Nielsen??
Well, in short, no, we did not need this new entry in the 'Naked Gun' franchise. Yes, it's a reboot and a sequel at the same time. This movie follows on from the last entry as we now follow the son of Frank Drebin, now played by Liam Neeson. Was this a good choice? Well, who on earth else could you cast? I'm struggling to think of ANYONE that could fill Nielsen's shoes. I guess flipping Neeson's recent spate of action man roles into all-out comedy does kinda work. Nielsen went from serious roles into spoof comedy so...Thing is, will I be able to look at another serious action flick with Neeson seriously again?
Straight off the bat this movie makes some huge errors. Where is the classic theme tune? How could you not include that?? Where is the classic police car siren POV gag intro sequence?? Seriously! How could you leave THAT out?? But then they go and tack it on the end credits? And all they do is simply replay all the segments from the original movies? Why not make your own? Plenty of things they could have done, come on now! Ugh!!!
But again I find myself asking questions. Just who is this movie for exactly? People who grew up with Nielsen and this franchise (middle-aged folk like myself), will probably be intrigued, morbid curiosity, but I'm unsure if they will like it (I'm not sure myself). Many younger folk probably haven't even heard of this franchise, or Nielsen! Yes the original trilogy was big back in the day, but they have been somewhat criminally forgotten over time, especially with most of the main cast long gone.
Anyways, the plot is right in line with previous entries. Drebin has to solve a mysterious crime concocted by local wealthy businessman Richard Cane. He wants to revert all Humanity back to its primal state so everyone kills each other off leaving him and his wealthy elite to start the Human Race over; meh. What follows is a somewhat satisfactory attempt at trying to recreate the golden age of spoof that Zucker and Nielsen rattled off so easily. All in all, it feels more scattershot in nature as lots of gags are thrown at us and only a few manage to stick (for me at least).
As Drebin and Beth (Pamela Anderson, yes that one) are enjoying an evening in, with the dog, one of Cane's henchmen watches from afar with a heat vision scope. What he sees is admittedly one of the best moments in this movie. Typically vulgar, crass, juvenile, and surprisingly X-rated in my humble little opinion...hilarious! Another little moment of genius comes and goes quickly but had me giggling for some time, as Drebin mispronounces the word 'manslaughter'. The mini thriller plot involving a snowman was pretty neat. And the sequence with Drebin illegally getting a confession out of Cane's henchman, only to be caught in an internal sting operation, which in turn is then caught in another sting operation and so forth...was quite brilliant.
So aside from the odd moment of comedic originality, everything else we see is a parade of mostly sight gags that fall flat, or are simply the same gags they used in the original movies. Continuity appreciated, I guess, but it also felt lazy. This is the impression I got throughout really. This isn't a bad comedy, not at all. For this modern era of garbage, this is actually pretty solid, and a far better late-in-the-day reboot sequel than most (Dumb and Dumber 2, Coming to America 2, Bill & Ted 3 etc...). The main cast is actually pretty good and fit the bill perfectly. The criminally underused Danny Huston (who still hasn't been cast as The Joker yet) was a better villain than Robert Goulet, in my opinion. And Pammy Anderson? What can I say? The perfect mature, sexy seductress type for Drebin to monologue over in his mind. Wasn't so sure about the guy playing Captain Ed Hocken's son. He came across like a poor man's Danny McBride.
So apart from making me feel really quite old (oh Pammy! What happened?!), did this do it for me? Well yes and no. Like I said, this is definitely one of the better modern reboots I've seen in a long time. It's also one of the better modern movies (and comedies) I've seen amongst the dross. But overall, it still feels like a whimpering attempt to try and hit the lofty heights of the original classics. On its own as a stand-alone flick, yeah it works better, but let's be frank (pun intended I guess), this didn't need to be made. This movie only made me miss Leslie's genius even more.
5/10
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