Comedy Liam Neeson Firing Up ‘The Naked Gun’ Reboot for Paramount

[Spider-Fan]

Spoofs are probably my least favorite genre. The OJ joke in the trailer was hilarious, but outside that...yeesh. But, I only like a handful of spoof movies anyway, and most of the ones I like were made by Mel Brooks. So this was likely never going to be my jam.

 

[TheVileOne]

Between Naked Gun, Scary Movie 6 and Spaceballs 2 I think we are officially in "spoof movies are back" territory. Fingers crossed they're good enough.

I wouldn't say they are back unless they are actually GOOD.

 

[Drizzle]

Yeah, if anything this is just a "let's try and see if this works" approach. They're all legacy sequels. It's not like we're going to see a ridiculous run of garbage like Seltzer and Friedberg spoofs had in the late 2000s with Date Movie, Epic Movie, Disaster Movie, etc.

 

[Lily Adler]

Yeah, if anything this is just a "let's try and see if this works" approach. They're all legacy sequels. It's not like we're going to see a ridiculous run of garbage like Seltzer and Friedberg spoofs had in the late 2000s with Date Movie, Epic Movie, Disaster Movie, etc.

Superhero Movie came out a couple of years too late... or early.

 

[DyeLorean]

I wouldn't say they are back unless they are actually GOOD.

Sure, but they weren't making it. They are back in the most literal sense of the word.
The comedy genre has been seriously left behind. I'm really hoping they are good, I miss laughing in theaters.

 

[TheVileOne]

Sure, but they weren't making it. They are back in the most literal sense of the word.
The comedy genre has been seriously left behind. I'm really hoping they are good, I miss laughing in theaters.

But they're all sequels to older films.

 

[Zantera]

Spoof movies when done right are some of my favorite comedies, but spoof movies when done wrong is the bottom of the barrel.

That's why I'm both excited and nervous with this Naked Gun because those original films are so wonderful. I think what the good spoof movies do well is that you don't necessarily need to be familiar with what they're spoofing to still find it funny. There are some references or jokes in those ZAZ-movies that go over my head because I was born in '91.

For example in Top Secret you have the car that gets rear ended but it just get's a tiny impact yet it explodes. Apparently a reference to that model (Ford Pinto I believe) having a famously bad design and that rear ending that car would lead to explosions. Yet despite learning about that later I still find that funny in the movie because of the absurdity of hearing that light impact sound and seeing the car going up in flames.

I think what those early spoof movies did so well was putting so much jokes in the movies, and I believe a core philosophy of the ZAZ-movies was if you have an exposition scene telling us something about the plot then you need to have something funny in the background. (Val Kilmer trying on suits in the background of Top Secret, in Naked Gun 2 you have the bar scene with Frank and Ed with lots of funny stuff in the background). Feels like the modern spoof movies stopped putting in any effort and a joke would just be "look it's The Hulk and he farted on Kim Kardashian".

 

[Pennywise]

 

[DyeLorean]

Hit and miss jokes for me but the "take a chair" one got me good.

 

[Lily Adler]

Seth McFarlane? I should have known.

 

[OrbOfConfusion]

The thermal vision joke would've been funnier if I hadn't seen that joke done in Austin Powers more than once.

CCH Pounder being the police chief in this is...kind of perfect. There'll have to be at least one joke in there referencing The Shield. That said, it's hard to take the 'Angry Black captain' trope seriously after 21 Jump Street!

 

[DarkKnight88]

Looks ok. I’m actually surprised how “restrained” the wackiness it looks compared to the earlier Naked Gun scenes.

And come on; they could’ve played the Naked Gun theme at least once in there lol

 

[Kane52630]

It looks decent enough, I just wish they would stop shooting movies that look like digital sh**. Maybe they thought it was gonna be a streaming movie and that's why it looks like that.

 

[Filmfan93]

Funnily, I watched The Naked Gun for the 1st time yesterday and both me and my partner had an amazing time. Watching 2 & 3 in the following days.

This one seems to be catching the spirit of the originals perfectly. But I agree with the comment above that visually it looks like sh*t and has that cheap "straight to-DVD early 2000 trash" look.

 

[Gee]

Yep, Day 0. Don't need to watch anything else until then.

 

[TheVileOne]

Seth McFarlane? I should have known.

View attachment 138737

That time Family Guy riffed on Naked Gun:

 

[Zantera]

Not every joke lands but there's some stuff like "take a chair" or "man's laughter" that felt very true to the original films. I feel like we'll probably get some classic Naked Gun music used in the film though? I think the trailers are misleading us and it's slightly weird seeing some scenes that could be Taken 4 but a random slapstick joke at the end.

 

[OrbOfConfusion]

I will say, I'm genuinely curious to see how well Neeson does with this sort of comedy. He's really nailing the deadpan delivery in a way that does feel like a spiritual successor to Leslie Nielsen. So in that regard, I'm interested because Neeson playing it so straight in a Naked Gun film after so many serious roles does sound fun.