"It's a kind of comedy that has mostly fallen out of favor-twelve-year-olds are more sophisticated these days, maybe-and it's especially hard to pull off in our post-irony age. So I was skeptical enough of this year's "Naked Gun" reboot, starring Liam Neeson as Frank Drebin, Jr., and Pamela Anderson as his romantic foil, to mostly forget that it was coming out. But then word got around: it was really funny."
"It's from the first "Naked Gun" movie, from 1988, starring Leslie Nielsen as the bumbling Los Angeles police detective Frank Drebin and Priscilla Presley as his love interest Jane. During a fireside dinner, Drebin recounts a past heartbreak. "It's the same old story," he says. "Boy finds girl, boy loses girl, girl finds boy, boy forgets girl, boy remembers girl, girl dies in a tragic blimp accident over the Orange Bowl on New Year's Day.""
Naked Gun reboot stars Liam Neeson as Frank Drebin Jr. and Pamela Anderson as his romantic foil. The film resurrects Eighties-style deadpan nonsense comedy that depends on a thin thread of reality and unwavering deadpan delivery. That style has largely fallen out of favor and is difficult to execute in a post-irony age. The reboot contains both effective gags and notable clunkers. Homage moments reproduce original film beats, including a seduction scene that riffs on UCLA/hills wordplay. When the jokes land, the film provokes loud laughter; when they miss, the failures feel particularly obvious.
Read at The New Yorker
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