 For quite some time now, it seems there hasn't been a whole lot of reflection on those original three 'Naked Gun' movies. They have since aged for various reasons I've already mentioned ad nauseam in my respective reviews for the original trilogy; therefore, we won't go into it here. But it feels safe to say that the spoofy satire that movies like the 'Naked Gun' series officially got worn out by people like Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer, whose filmographies frankly speak for themselves.
Suddenly, the random casting idea for Liam Neeson to play some version of Frank Drebin of Police Squad (in this case, Frank's son, continuing the story and providing a soft reboot of the series). Speaking for myself, I was thrilled by the idea, primarily based on his cameo appearance in 'Ted 2,' which showed that he's far more than just an awesome gun-toting action hero. The other side of it is that people forget Leslie Nielsen was also a serious dramatic actor before his spoof days, so there was something very fitting about the whole situation. The film opens with the scene we've all seen from the trailer by now, featuring Frank Drebin Jr. disguised as a little girl, who puts a stop to a bank robbery. He single-handedly takes them down, but his renegade ways get him reassigned by his Chief, Davis (CCH Pounder), as he's become a legal liability. Here, we see that we're dealing with the next generation of Police Squad when Drebin Jr. and others pay homage to their fathers' plaques on the wall in another one of the trailers' great gags when it gets to, as he's actually credited, "Not Nordberg Jr." (Moses Jones). In the meantime, as it turns out, the whole bank robbery was a distraction for the real criminals to break into a safe deposit box and steal the P.L.O.T. ("Primordial Law of Toughness") Device, which the wealthy Richard Cane (Danny Huston) plans to use to reduce the general population to barbaric creatures. At the same time, he and his fellow billionaires remain safe in a prepared bunker. Without getting into it too much, it's the typical "solve the case, stop the criminal" deal that these tend to be, complete with a mysterious love interest in Beth Davenport (Pamela Anderson). Pamela Anderson is known chiefly within my generation as a sort of primary sex symbol, who tended to be all looks, little substance, mainly due to her often being directed to be a bimbo of some kind. Recently, she has really been coming into her own, and her hilarious performance here is more proof of it. Her chemistry with Neeson is just as strong, if not stronger, than Leslie Nielsen and Priscilla Presley in the originals. It's great to see Pam finally move beyond the ditzy blonde trend and flex those acting muscles. She'll give you some solid laughs here. My only slight criticism is that I wish some of the side characters played a bit more of a role, like "Not Nordberg." Having said that, however, it's hard to criticize something I came to expecting to be pleasantly stupid. I got what I came for and then some. Akiva Schaffer and his team behind this really dug in. They did their homework, bringing back some of the better gags we remember so fondly, and even going so far as to bring elements in from the original 'Police Squad' TV series. It's remarkable to say this about something recent that delves into our nostalgia, but everything about this feels right for what it's supposed to be. While it pays homage to the original material, it remains its own entity. The dad jokes and silly gags are abundant, some new, some old, but good. My favourite bit is the running gag about being constantly handed a cup of coffee. Hell, it doesn't even delve into raunchy or violent repetition humour, which seems to be what drives these types of movies these days. It's very clear to anyone who watches this that the filmmakers were fans of all of the original material. 4/5
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