Lieutenant Frank Drebin Jr. of the LAPD Police Squad is sent to investigate a mysterious case in which a certain Simon died in a car accident in his electric vehicle. Conversely, Simon's sister Beth considers it a murder. Frank and his partner Ed discover that Simon's boss Richard Cane, a billionaire and owner of a company which produces elcetric vehicles, plans to use a device to turn the human population into its premordial state and thereby reduce it, to start the civilization anew, while he and other billionaires will hide in the bunker. Luckily, Frank and Beth are able to stop him, and become a couple in the process.
31 years after the last sequel to the film series, "The Naked Gun" was rebooted with this peculiar new version which is not as funny as the first or the third film, but is still better than the strained second film. The parody genre and its live action cartoon-style of comedy became extinct in the modern era of harsh hyper-realism cinema, and thus it is surprising how well this film works, regardless, almost as some sort of a "dissident" of comedy films of that time. Liam Neeson is somewhat miscast as Frank Drebin Jr. since he doesn't have a sense for comic timing, but Pamela Anderson is a refreshing discovery as a charming comedian, here playing crime novelist Beth. The gags are a hit-or-miss affair, since some fail to ignite, yet the movie is overall luckily never as forced as some feared it would be. The opening sequence where a little girl enters a bank during a robbery and reveals underneath her mask that she is actually Frank Drebin Jr. in disguise is awesome, as is the follow-up fight sequence where he hams it up big time. The authors mock everything and everyone, from oligarchy, plutocracy, through even the original film series (as Frank looks at the photo of Leslie Nielsen at the LAPD wall and pays homage to his late dad, we also see an African-American police officer looking at the photo of his dad, O.J. Simpson, but then just shakes his head, stops and walks away), and even the police conduct during certain racial situations ("You don't remember me, do you?" - "Should I?" - "My brother. You shot him in the name of justice". - "It can literally be thousands of people". - "You shot him in the back as he ran away". - "Hundreds". - "Unarmed". - "At least fifty". - "He was white". - "So you're Tommy Roiland's brother!"). The fantasy sequence involving the snowman is surreally hilarious and out of place, showing that even this updated "The Naked Gun" works, despite some of its weaker moments.
Grade:++
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