The Naked Gun, one of the funniest film series ever, gets a reboot helmed by Akiva Schaffer, member of the Lonely Island, and director of the hilarious and criminally underrated Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping.
Schaffer, who also directed 11 episodes of the very funny series I Think You Should Leave With Tim Robinson, certainly has the chops to give the classic deadpan humor of The Naked Gun series a try. Sadly, it’s a near-miss.
Liam Neeson and Pamela Anderson try to do what Leslie Nielsen and Priscilla Presley did so effortlessly more than three decades ago. The result is a mixed bag at best; the jokes that land get a decent giggle, but the groaners outweigh the good ones.
I got a kick out of a sequence in which Frank Drebin Jr. (Neeson) presents his body-cam footage, unedited. Anderson takes a pretty outrageous stab at jazz singing that amuses.
Unfortunately, I spent a lot of time sitting in bored silence. There are too many sequences in which Schaffer and his team milk the living hell out of gags. There are also too many moments when the art of deadpan is lost in favor of some sort of comedic/dramatic realism. There were times when I started to laugh, but then recoiled when the gag got beaten to death.
The filmmakers erred in following the original Naked Gun template too closely. Nielsen, a dramatic actor who moved to comedy with Airplane and the Naked Gun series, was a DEADPAN MASTER, and rocked every scenario handed to him. Neeson, however, seems to be straining too often. A comedic actor with dramatic chops—like Michael Keaton, Will Ferrell or even Lonely Island vet Andy Samberg—might’ve fared better in the role.
Expecting what happened with Nielsen to be repeated with Neeson was too big of an ask. I admire the attempt here, and Neeson was even a little funnier than I expected—but he’s miscast as the lead in a comedy franchise like this one.
Lighten up it was hilarious