The Naked Gun

 So after all those decennia, a new Naked Gun was released on the world, starring Leslie Nielsen and Pamela Anderson.

 

While I was sceptical, I did sit down in the hopes of some good slapstick and dirty dad jokes... and curious about how they would manage to actually do those in this woke era of history.

 

Well, I was not disappointed, yet I was.  In the first half of this (short) film, I regularly laughed out loud (the OJ Simpson joke for example), while from halfway onwards, generally when the "real hunt for the bad guy" began, I found the level of jokes drop enormously.

 

Neeson plays Frank Drebin Jr, son of the legendary character of Leslie Nielsen.  He stops a bank robbery, but the actual plan was that is was a distraction so that the PLOT Device could be stolen.  But as his over the top behaviour causes legal issues, he is sidelined by his chief.  When he investigates the car crash of Simon Davenport and gets approached by his sister Beth, they link the robbery and the crash together.

 

The boss of Davenport, Edentech's owner Richard Cane, is behind both, wanting to use the PLOT Device to return humans to their basic aggressive nature and he and a select few wade the anarchy out in bunkers, to establish a new world order afterwards.  Drebin is framed for the murder of a journalist that worked with Davenport, and he finds comfort in the arms of Beth (and all the innuendo from the first movies is implied here as well).

 

Drebin becomes a target for Cane, who tries to kill him with his electric car, but he escapes, capturing Cane's henchman Gustafson and bringing him to confession.  He plans on dropping the PLOT bomb at the New Year's ball MMA event, and they fail to disarm the device, turning the crowd violently on each other.  With his father's spirit appearing in the form of an owl, he manages to confront and capture Cane, while using the PLOT device to calm the crowd.

 

So yeah, for me it was great fun until the part of the romance between Drebin and Beth, only to have it watering down like a melting snowman after that (pun intended).  The owl sequence was silly but not in a funny way, and while Neeson does the job as the new "Police Squad top agent" the movie was, well, enjoyable but not memorable like it's predecessors.