No wonder my Showcase has this playing in the smallest theaters in the complex. Under no pretense is this good.
I love how the article spins it as "respectable" and that it cost "only $42 million" when a $15-$17 mil opening weekend virtually guarantees it's only going to be profitable once it exits theaters. If that.
THE NAKED GUN (2025) - Andy's Review
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AndyDursin
- Posts: 36036
- Joined: Tue Oct 05, 2004 8:45 pm
- Location: RI
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Monterey Jack
- Posts: 10648
- Joined: Mon Oct 18, 2004 12:14 am
- Location: Walpole, MA
Re: Naked Gun Trailer (OJ Joke)
8.5/10
I thought this was terrific, myself, 85 minutes (more like 77 sans credits, but the credits are studded with good gags in and of themselves) of almost non-stop guffaws with only a handful of brief dead spots. Most "spoof" movies in recent years have fallen into the trap of either confusing references with actual jokes (like those ghastly "Seltzerberg" movies of the mid-to-late 2000s) or else filling the frame with scatalogical excess, and while this isn't a movie above fart jokes, it spaces them out with a bevy of sharp observational humor, random non-sequiturs, broad slapstick and mind-bending worldplay that keeps you constantly chuckling and smiling, with enough boffo big laughs to play well with a theater audience (my early matinee was sparsely attended, but the handful of people who showed up were laughing throughout). Liam Neeson makes the smart decision to play the silly shenanigans as straight-faced as he's done any of his recent spate of arthritic action-hero roles, with a minimum of the broad mugging that came to typify Leslie Nielsen's performance in the original movie's sequels or the lame, post-ZAZ spoofs he was slumming in. It's also surprisingly light on Memberberry callbacks to the previous trilogy of films, which sadly Carrie's over to Lorne Balfe's blah score. Aside from a recurrent noirish jazz theme, the rest is your typical Media Ventures hodgepodge, and a terrific arrangement of Ira Newborn's theme over the end credits only makes you wish that Joel McNeely had been retained, as he would have more adroitly recreated the soundscape of the previous films and sent up film music cliches in a more satisfying manner. other than that, though, this movie was a gas, full of so many jokes some may not even register fully until a second viewing. In a marketplace saturated with weary reboots, this is a "legacy sequel" that pays affectionate tribute to its predecessors while still carving out its own unique sense of humor. It's just bracing to actually LAUGH in a movie theater seat again. Shame it's not gonna break out at the box office, but it will find an audience at home.
I thought this was terrific, myself, 85 minutes (more like 77 sans credits, but the credits are studded with good gags in and of themselves) of almost non-stop guffaws with only a handful of brief dead spots. Most "spoof" movies in recent years have fallen into the trap of either confusing references with actual jokes (like those ghastly "Seltzerberg" movies of the mid-to-late 2000s) or else filling the frame with scatalogical excess, and while this isn't a movie above fart jokes, it spaces them out with a bevy of sharp observational humor, random non-sequiturs, broad slapstick and mind-bending worldplay that keeps you constantly chuckling and smiling, with enough boffo big laughs to play well with a theater audience (my early matinee was sparsely attended, but the handful of people who showed up were laughing throughout). Liam Neeson makes the smart decision to play the silly shenanigans as straight-faced as he's done any of his recent spate of arthritic action-hero roles, with a minimum of the broad mugging that came to typify Leslie Nielsen's performance in the original movie's sequels or the lame, post-ZAZ spoofs he was slumming in. It's also surprisingly light on Memberberry callbacks to the previous trilogy of films, which sadly Carrie's over to Lorne Balfe's blah score. Aside from a recurrent noirish jazz theme, the rest is your typical Media Ventures hodgepodge, and a terrific arrangement of Ira Newborn's theme over the end credits only makes you wish that Joel McNeely had been retained, as he would have more adroitly recreated the soundscape of the previous films and sent up film music cliches in a more satisfying manner. other than that, though, this movie was a gas, full of so many jokes some may not even register fully until a second viewing. In a marketplace saturated with weary reboots, this is a "legacy sequel" that pays affectionate tribute to its predecessors while still carving out its own unique sense of humor. It's just bracing to actually LAUGH in a movie theater seat again. Shame it's not gonna break out at the box office, but it will find an audience at home.
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AndyDursin
- Posts: 36036
- Joined: Tue Oct 05, 2004 8:45 pm
- Location: RI
Re: Naked Gun Trailer (OJ Joke)
4/10
As is the case with any comedy, you can't argue sense of humor, so all I can say is -- for me -- this GUN was a spectacular misfire.
I was sitting in a sold out crowd but based on the audience reaction -- to say nothing of my own -- I can see why this picture's opening weekend gross was so low. Maybe 2, possibly 3 people were routinely laughing in the back row and that was it. The girl two seats over to me was asleep. The guy next to her never laughed at all, which I think is a problem for younger viewers because nobody under the age of 50 is even going to know what film noir even is (was there any reason why this picture was still set in that genre to begin with?).
As for me, I laughed a couple of times...but not much. Outside of a line about Bill Cosby I was pretty much doing nothing but sitting stonefaced and wondering what was served up at the critics junket resulting in the barrage of positive Tomato-meter reviews this film inexplicably received (the audience score on that site is significantly less enthusiastic).
Conceptually the new "Naked Gun" is a bust. It's not funny enough, or paced quickly enough, to register. It doesn't really understand that the ZAZ movies' modern equivalent is a FAMILY GUY episode (ironic since that show's creator, Seth MacFarlane, is a producer here) and something that needs to be played with a high level of energy in order for it to work. This NAKED GUN plays too much of it straight -- with Liam Neeson's Frank Drebin mostly acting like a clown with mostly straight supporting players opposite him. The result is a film that isn't played broadly enough for it to establish any tangible comedic momentum.
More over, instead of getting jokes packed in every frame like the original movies, we get intermittent stabs at humor, creating a weird vibe where much of what you're seeing isn't supposed to be taken seriously -- but isn't funny either. This is less a balls-out comedy like ZAZ's movies than it is a (pretty lame) spoof mainly played straight with a silly lead character running through it, which is far less satisfying and makes the film-noir setting odd to begin with.
The frame work is making fun of something that's no longer topical or even relevant to THIS particular story, and that failure extends to the general humor in the movie altogether. Why wasn't this a broader action satire (Neeson's own career output could've been grist for the mill) or a story that, at least, could've satirized a wider group of characters than Danny Huston's Elon-like entrepreneur? Where is the pop-culture ribbing that the world of 2025 deserves?
It's hard to understand but it's a road director Akiva Schaffer mostly didn't travel here. THE NAKED GUN, the original, grilled all kinds of things -- and did so in a way where those topical references whirl by so quickly they don't stop the movie dead when you come across them today. Don't get the joke? Here's another one that works. And another. I rewatched it just a week ago with Theo and he laughed all throughout the picture. It holds up just as well now as it did then -- and it presents a funnier, wackier, more upbeat comedic environment than the dreary experience sitting through this movie amounts to. Even the look of this picture is drab and unpleasant.
Schaffer throws in some brief "shout outs" to the movies and "Police Squad" that, given the stylistic difference and drastic reduction in humor here, don't even feel like they belong -- just like Lorne Balfe's lousy score, which apparently was supposed to be funny since it's played so straight. It sounds more appropriate to a horror movie at times, fitting for the comedic horror show it accompanies.
As is the case with any comedy, you can't argue sense of humor, so all I can say is -- for me -- this GUN was a spectacular misfire.
I was sitting in a sold out crowd but based on the audience reaction -- to say nothing of my own -- I can see why this picture's opening weekend gross was so low. Maybe 2, possibly 3 people were routinely laughing in the back row and that was it. The girl two seats over to me was asleep. The guy next to her never laughed at all, which I think is a problem for younger viewers because nobody under the age of 50 is even going to know what film noir even is (was there any reason why this picture was still set in that genre to begin with?).
As for me, I laughed a couple of times...but not much. Outside of a line about Bill Cosby I was pretty much doing nothing but sitting stonefaced and wondering what was served up at the critics junket resulting in the barrage of positive Tomato-meter reviews this film inexplicably received (the audience score on that site is significantly less enthusiastic).
Conceptually the new "Naked Gun" is a bust. It's not funny enough, or paced quickly enough, to register. It doesn't really understand that the ZAZ movies' modern equivalent is a FAMILY GUY episode (ironic since that show's creator, Seth MacFarlane, is a producer here) and something that needs to be played with a high level of energy in order for it to work. This NAKED GUN plays too much of it straight -- with Liam Neeson's Frank Drebin mostly acting like a clown with mostly straight supporting players opposite him. The result is a film that isn't played broadly enough for it to establish any tangible comedic momentum.
More over, instead of getting jokes packed in every frame like the original movies, we get intermittent stabs at humor, creating a weird vibe where much of what you're seeing isn't supposed to be taken seriously -- but isn't funny either. This is less a balls-out comedy like ZAZ's movies than it is a (pretty lame) spoof mainly played straight with a silly lead character running through it, which is far less satisfying and makes the film-noir setting odd to begin with.
The frame work is making fun of something that's no longer topical or even relevant to THIS particular story, and that failure extends to the general humor in the movie altogether. Why wasn't this a broader action satire (Neeson's own career output could've been grist for the mill) or a story that, at least, could've satirized a wider group of characters than Danny Huston's Elon-like entrepreneur? Where is the pop-culture ribbing that the world of 2025 deserves?
It's hard to understand but it's a road director Akiva Schaffer mostly didn't travel here. THE NAKED GUN, the original, grilled all kinds of things -- and did so in a way where those topical references whirl by so quickly they don't stop the movie dead when you come across them today. Don't get the joke? Here's another one that works. And another. I rewatched it just a week ago with Theo and he laughed all throughout the picture. It holds up just as well now as it did then -- and it presents a funnier, wackier, more upbeat comedic environment than the dreary experience sitting through this movie amounts to. Even the look of this picture is drab and unpleasant.
Schaffer throws in some brief "shout outs" to the movies and "Police Squad" that, given the stylistic difference and drastic reduction in humor here, don't even feel like they belong -- just like Lorne Balfe's lousy score, which apparently was supposed to be funny since it's played so straight. It sounds more appropriate to a horror movie at times, fitting for the comedic horror show it accompanies.