The Naked Gun
Starring Liam Neeson, Pamela Anderson and Danny Huston
M
4/5
A soft reboot of the Naked Gun series, The Naked Gun is a blast from the past that puts a remarkable amount of effort and smarts into its slapstick fun.
Lieutenant Frank Drebin Jr. (Liam Neeson), the son of Leslie Nielsen’s character from the original Naked Gun movies, investigates a high-tech conspiracy after thwarting a bank robbery.
It’s rare to see a modern big-budget comedy so unashamedly silly, featuring wonderfully stupid moments mixed with ingenious sight gags and wordplay.
There are a few clunkers here and there, but most of the comedy lands perfectly.
Neeson ably fills Nielsen’s bumbling shoes as Lt. Drebin, his charisma brings believability to even the most absurd moments, and he is clearly having a blast spoofing his own old man action
hero image.
Plus, The Naked Gun is far better than the second and third Taken movies.
Pamela Anderson gets to riff on her own Baywatch-based sex symbol legacy as the hilarious femme fatale Beth Davenport, and matches Neeson’s deadpan wit at every turn.
The action scenes are somewhat perfunctory, some awesome moves notwithstanding, but The Naked Gun has always been more of a comedy series than an action series (for an action-
comedy reboot that doesn’t skimp on great action, watch the 2008 Get Smart reboot).
A hilarious, cleverly dumb, gloriously unselfconscious comedy, and a legacy sequel that brings more life to an old dinosaur of a franchise than this year’s actual dinosaur blockbuster, The Naked Gun is playing in most Victorian cinemas.
