Skip to main content

The Naked Gun


This uncalled for remake of 1988's The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad! is not a patch on the original, nor the TV show, Police Squad! that spawned them both. Director Akiva Schaffer has plenty of pedigree with stupid comedy, having directed oodles of Saturday Night Live episodes, as well as films like Hot Rod and The Watch. I haven't seen these films but I'm not about to now.

The new Naked Gun has a fairly rapid rate of jokes - many successful - in the first 30 minutes or so, but once the film had to start servicing the plot, the laughs dried up. Throughout the film, the sight gags didn't work as well as the straight-faced wordplay, à la the 'awfully big mustache' classic from The Naked Gun 2½: The Smell of Fear. This might be due to the casting. Liam Neeson is fun and tries hard, but he doesn't get anywhere near Leslie Nielsen, though I thought Pamela Anderson was an improvement on Priscilla Presley (I guess being an actual actor helps).


About that 'plot' - I'll be brief. Danny Huston's Richard Cane has probably had the brother of Beth Davenport (Anderson) killed. Bro apparently got too close to Cane's plans for a societal reset. Frank Drebin Jr. (Neeson - yes, he's the son of Nielsen's Drebin) stumbles and brawns his way through the case. Look, a film like this lives or dies by its guffaws, and I think the preview audience got their fill, the ones around me seemed to, at any rate. Let's see how it does with paying customers.


It's a shame David and Jerry Zucker couldn't have been brought in to write the jokes - sadly, the third member of the group, Jim Abrahams died in 2024. I actually rewatched the original the night after seeing the new one to confirm it was that much better. Sure, Nielsen carries a lot of the load, but the jokes landed better and the absurdity of the situations felt more at odds with the supposed seriousness of the story. And everyone plays it straight as a die, especially Nielsen, but also Ricardo Montalban and George Kennedy (only the part-timers Presley and O.J. Simpson - yep, that one - let the tone down a touch). In contrast, Neeson, Anderson, et al, in 2025 seem to be offering the audience a bit of the old 'nudge, nudge' most of the time.


The crucial, likely unavoidable, problem is that the first TV show and film were pastiches of earlier po-faced police shows and films. Much like Flying High (Airplane!) was almost a remake of the 1957 film, Zero Hour. This new film, though, is a copy of a copy, without a reference to anything real. There's no base text to spoof. Sure, there's a new audience who haven't seen the original films but will they have any frame of reference at all? Are the filmmakers gambling that dumb for dumb's sake is enough? Or are they relying on nostalgia from us over 50s filmgoers? I guess the Box Office is the litmus test.

The Naked Gun opens around Australia on August 21st.

See also:

The ZAZ team (Zucker, Abrahams and Zucker) were responsible for some of the goofiest comedies of the 80s. Flying High (Airplane!) (1980), and Top Secret (1984), written and directed by all three are two of the best. Incidentally, most countries used the Airplane! title, but here in Australia, we went for Flying High. Also, Top Secret was the film debut for lead, Val Kilmer.

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Coyote vs. Acme

While there have been loads of Looney Tunes feature films, this is the fourth to mix live action with the animated favourites. There are two  Space Jam films, but if you can remember 2003's Looney Tunes: Back in Action , you're doing better than me. This new hybrid, directed by Dave Green, stars Will Forte and John Cena as opposing lawyers in a case brought against Acme by Wile E. Coyote.  Oddly, this film is actually based on an article for the New Yorker magazine, written by Ian Frazier, about the downtrodden desert dog and his annoyance with Acme Corporation and their faulty products. I realise that some younger crew will have no idea of the content of the Looney Tunes Road Runner cartoons, so to sum it up: "Road Runner, the Coyote's after you. Road Runner, if he catches you, you're through." Yep, it's a classic, constant chase, and as this film posits, maybe the chase is the point. Logically, and in nature, the coyote would probably eat the bird, if i...
Post a Comment
Read more

Spider-Man: Brand New Day

Well, well, well. This thing has done some business. It's currently SIXTH in all time worldwide receipts, with Titanic in its sights. But, of course, it's problematic to rely on public opinion as a judge of quality. Or maybe that's just me. Because I found this new Spider-Man film to be just slightly above average. They are quite a few positives to take from it. Tom Holland has a winning presence, the omnipotent Zendaya is his equal (they have some nice moments together), and the cameos are fun - Mark Ruffalo's Hulk, Florence Pugh's Yelena Belova, and John Bernthal's Punisher big screen debut. Aside from the performances, the city of New York is almost another character, and it's portrayed lovingly here. The jumpy, swingy scenes feel more realistic than previous films, and there's a dark edge to the story as well, to do with change and maturity. The first grown-up Spider-Man? On that note, I read his situation as a late arrival at puberty. Bear with me...
Post a Comment
Read more

The Odyssey

Christopher Nolan is one of the few active directors who can entice punters to the cinema (along with Denis Villeneuve), and they've come out in droves for his latest, a retelling of Homer's The Odyssey . Matt Damon stars as Odysseus, the king of Ithaca who is co-opted to join his overlord, Agamemnon, in his attack on Troy. After near 10 years of siege, culminating in the Trojan Horse event, the silly bastard then decides to take the scenic route home, and gets plumb lost.  What follows is a technically brilliant rendering of mythical nonsense made to feel real. Odysseus's mini-fleet of three ships and maybe 100 (?) men run into several hardships, notably the Cyclops; a small army of huge men called the Laestrygonians; the sorceress, Circe; and some salacious sea nymphs. These set pieces are fantastic, especially the Cyclops (played by TARS voice from Interstellar , Bill Irwin), and Circe's cottage, where she has a way with greedy menfolk. Samantha Morton is almost best...
1 comment
Read more

The Last Resort

This preview for the Nordic Film Festival is a proper drama for grown-ups, directed and co-written by Maria Sødahl, that poses some curly questions. It's about a middle class Danish couple on holiday with their young daughters in the Canary Islands. Interestingly, the Danish title is Paradis , which carries a bit more irony than its English title. Mikkel (Esben Smed) and Louise (Danica Curcic) are a typically 'normal' couple from northern Europe, enjoying their island holiday when they run down a bloke while driving at night. He turns out to be Ahmed (Aziz Çapkurt), a refugee from Afghanistan, and his leg is pretty munted. Trying to do the right thing, they take him to hospital and leave him with some cash, and crucially, their resort room and phone numbers. This minor act of kindness, and no little guilt, sets in motion a slow building series of events that fucks with the couple's holiday, and relationship in a wider sense. The resurfacing of Ahmed is clearly signpost...
Post a Comment
Read more

Revelation Film Festival 2026 - Wrap up

So that's Rev for another year. I made it to eight films and it was far from a stellar collection, but I think I made the wrong choice to start with - Bulk , when I could have waited an hour and watched Rosebush Pruning , which looked better in hindsight. Anyhoo, live and learn, I guess. Here are the films I saw in viewing order: Bulk    ★ Boy, this was hard to get through. More pleased with itself than it had any right to be. Sam Riley and Alexandra Maria Lara are together again (after the vastly superior Control ) with Noah Taylor wafting around too. Writer/director Ben Wheatley has had a roller-coaster of a career so far, but this must be one of the nadirs. There are elements of Team America: World Police , Eraserhead and model work reminiscent of Ray Harryhausen, but the overripe dialogue, annoying performances, and sheer boredom all serve to give this a whiff of a pretentious student film (past experience verified). Avoid. Penny Lane is Dead    ★ ★ ★ There is ...
Post a Comment
Read more

The Good Boy

This English/Polish co-production is not to be confused with Good Boy , a dog-based horror film, even though in most regions the definite article is removed - it seems only Australia and the UK have it as The Good Boy . To muddy the waters more, in some areas, including the US, Brazil and the Netherlands, it's called Heel , something you might say to a dog. Anyway, I'll call it THE Good Boy because that's how it's being sold here. It's directed by a Polish guy called Jan Komasa, who's done some features in Poland, and written by first time writer Bartek Bartosik, alongside slightly more established Naqqash Khalid. They've concocted a genre pic that flirts with horror, winks at black comedy and straight up propositions psychological dependency drama. At the beginning of the film, young scally Tommy (Anson Boon) is a hateable twat, acting 'the big I am' on a night out, drug-fucked and aggro with everyone, until he sets off on his own for more action. ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Prometheus

It has taken me a few days to start this entry as I needed to ponder a number of issues. Without thinking too much about it, I really enjoyed Prometheus . It looked great (2D), the cast was pretty solid, Fassbender excellent, but I'll return to him later and the story was satisfying in its connection to, and, at the same time, its distancing from Alien . Let me explain that last messy clause. I think you can watch this without any knowledge of the Alien series but as most of us over 20 know about the other films, its quite good fun to recognise the hints and echoes throughout. The only slight issues I have are regarding the details in the story. Here's where it may get a little/very SPOILERY, so please look away if you haven't seen the film. Firstly, the religious angle irritated me a bit but I guess if you're investigating the origin of humanity, you might at least pay lip service to "the great magic". And of course, Christianity is at the heart of the ...
2 comments
Read more

The Kidnapping of a President

This film, screening at the Nordic Film Festival , is a slightly slapstick telling of the attempted coup in Finland in 1930, where ex-President Kaarlo Ståhlberg and his wife were kidnapped and driven across the country by the right wing fascist Lapua Movement. It's tied together by a best on ground performance from the Finnish Glenn McGrath, Jussi Vatanen (it's astonishing how much this guy looks like Pidge - scroll to the bottom and decide yourself). He plays Eero Kuussaari, a colonel desperate for respect and promotion. This frustration and feeling of inferiority drives him to drunkenly order a young crew of right-wing activists to kidnap Stahlberg (Pertti Sveholm) from his country home. They don't bargain on Mrs. Stahlberg (Riitta Havukainen) insisting on joining them.  Director Samuli Valkama has made a clever little historical comedy drama with current reverberations, considering Finland's place as a potential bulwark to Russia in Europe. The events of this film ta...
Post a Comment
Read more

Supergirl

This new superhero flick from the DCU is an incel's nightmare. Following on from James Gunn's Superman of last year, Craig Gillespie takes the director's reins for this spin-off, Supergirl . Quick deviation - partway through, there's a clever aside about how Kara gets the 'girl' label, while her cousin Kal-El can use 'man'. Starting as it means to go on. Before we actually see the lead, we open with the motivating event of a family slaughter by the face-studded Krem of the Yellow Hills (Matthias Schoenaerts), sending young Ruthye (Eve Ridley) off on a revenge quest, which eventually drags in Kara Kor-El (Milly Alcock). Kara is on a week-long birthday bender, making sure to stay in red sun systems so that her powers don't work and the booze does. This is significant for the showstopping transformation yet to come on an interplanetary bus. Look, the film itself is fine, nothing new in the storyline structure (Andrew from The Curb notes that 'the ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Dune

Denis Villeneuve's long-awaited  Dune  finally arrives in Australian cinemas and it's a technical marvel.  To start with, there's the amazing production design by Patrice Vermette. A lot of the sets and machinery have been physically created, to add weight to the visual effects. A highlight is the appearance of the 'ornithopter', a clunky, dragonfly of metal, that flaps its wings to fly. The scale of the buildings and cities is mammoth, many of them made on a studio lot in Budapest (see this  Architectural Digest article  for more). The cinematography, by Melburnian, Greig Fraser, is suitably magic, in keeping with Villeneuve's stylistic requirements, For example, desert scenes have a tendency to go all wind-whipped and blurry, but even when a dragonfly enters a storm, acuity is admirably maintained.  The visuals are just a part of Villeneuve's signature language - the almost ethereal long shots across vast rooms and landscapes; the measured, even slow paci...
4 comments
Read more