By: Jesse Striewski

After laying dormant for over three decades, The Naked Gun has finally been resurrected with Liam Neeson in place of the late legend Leslie Neilsen. It’s not easy to bring back something once held with such regard though, and that’s surely proven here.

Nesson plays Frank Drebin, Jr., the son of Neilsen’s original character. He meets the beautiful bombshell Beth Davenport (Pamela Anderson) after her brother is suspiciously murdered, and a rather uninteresting plot to uncover some shady corporate cover-up (headed by Danny Huston) ensues.

The two leads do work together well, resulting in some humorous moments (the montage with the snowman played to the tune of Starship’s “Nothing Gonna Stop Us” was rather amusing), and there’s even a couple of cameos from series regulars like Priscilla Presley and “Weird Al” Yankovic (blink and you might miss the former). But the laugh-out-loud jokes are way to widespread, and viewers were already given a quarter of the film via trailers prior to ever even stepping foot in a theater.

The original Naked Gun film series was comic gold, and it speaks volumes that the producers of this film did not even reach out to either of the Zucker brothers behind it for this one. But I can remember going to see Naked Gun 33 1/3: The Final Insult when it came out in 1994 (I think even on opening night if memory serves correct) and thinking “this isn’t that good in comparison to the first two films.” I got that very same feeling again while watching this one.

Rating: 2/5 Stars