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#2 - The Naked Gun 33 1/3: The Final Insult
Peter Segal, 1994
The third and final installment in the Naked Gun trilogy concerns Lt. Frank Drebin (Leslie Nielsen), now retired from police work and trying to start a family with Jane (Priscilla Presley), being dragged back into the fray in order to uncover a plot by a mad bomber (Fred Ward).
I wanted to like this. The original Naked Gun is a minor favourite thanks to its merciless spoofing of detective movies aided in no small part by every performer playing almost every moment completely deadpan. The sequel, The Smell of Fear, took a major drop in quality but I didn't hate it. I understand that few sequels to hit comedies ever live even slightly up to the standards set by the original film. This, on the other hand...well, look at that screencap above. That's our intrepid yet foolhardy hero being so sickened by (spoiler alert) the supposedly humourous revelation that the villain's seductive girlfriend actually has a penis that he immediately runs off and vomits into a tuba - while the tuba is being played. That's a very big decline for a film series that wrought comedy gold from car chases involving learner drivers and ludicrous fight scenes involving cabals of anti-American world leaders. Hell, the only reason that moment stands out is because it's the grossly unforgettable type of unfunny instead of the blandly forgettable kind of unfunny that permeates the rest of the film.
Unlike the first two films, the film seems overly dependent on directly parodying specific movies - films such as The Untouchables, Jurassic Park and Thelma and Louise are ripped on to less than stellar effect, and that's without mentioning the various cracks at the film industry made during the film's third act, which takes place during Oscars night. The film barely raises any sincere chuckles - the closest I came was the show-stopping number where Frank has to slide through a bunch of male dancers' legs and ends up headbutting each one in the crotch as he does. The usual Zucker-style mix of surreal sight-gags and bizarre turns of phrase abounds but barely any of them hit the mark.
Lately, I have been wondering if I rated The Smell of Fear too harshly and have been contemplating revisiting it. This, on the other hand, is a film I don't exactly see myself re-watching any time soon, if ever. At its absolute best it's a shadow of its predecessors that relies too much on copying particular films rather than entire genres - it's that kind of narrow-minded approach to parody that's led to the genre being oversaturated by films whose titles tend to follow the "______ Movie" format - if we're lucky. At worst (and I'll be honest, it's closer to "at worst" than "at best"), it's a complete and utter disappointment, and much like a spoonful of Draino, it'll leave you hollow inside.
Peter Segal, 1994
The third and final installment in the Naked Gun trilogy concerns Lt. Frank Drebin (Leslie Nielsen), now retired from police work and trying to start a family with Jane (Priscilla Presley), being dragged back into the fray in order to uncover a plot by a mad bomber (Fred Ward).
I wanted to like this. The original Naked Gun is a minor favourite thanks to its merciless spoofing of detective movies aided in no small part by every performer playing almost every moment completely deadpan. The sequel, The Smell of Fear, took a major drop in quality but I didn't hate it. I understand that few sequels to hit comedies ever live even slightly up to the standards set by the original film. This, on the other hand...well, look at that screencap above. That's our intrepid yet foolhardy hero being so sickened by (spoiler alert) the supposedly humourous revelation that the villain's seductive girlfriend actually has a penis that he immediately runs off and vomits into a tuba - while the tuba is being played. That's a very big decline for a film series that wrought comedy gold from car chases involving learner drivers and ludicrous fight scenes involving cabals of anti-American world leaders. Hell, the only reason that moment stands out is because it's the grossly unforgettable type of unfunny instead of the blandly forgettable kind of unfunny that permeates the rest of the film.
Unlike the first two films, the film seems overly dependent on directly parodying specific movies - films such as The Untouchables, Jurassic Park and Thelma and Louise are ripped on to less than stellar effect, and that's without mentioning the various cracks at the film industry made during the film's third act, which takes place during Oscars night. The film barely raises any sincere chuckles - the closest I came was the show-stopping number where Frank has to slide through a bunch of male dancers' legs and ends up headbutting each one in the crotch as he does. The usual Zucker-style mix of surreal sight-gags and bizarre turns of phrase abounds but barely any of them hit the mark.
Lately, I have been wondering if I rated The Smell of Fear too harshly and have been contemplating revisiting it. This, on the other hand, is a film I don't exactly see myself re-watching any time soon, if ever. At its absolute best it's a shadow of its predecessors that relies too much on copying particular films rather than entire genres - it's that kind of narrow-minded approach to parody that's led to the genre being oversaturated by films whose titles tend to follow the "______ Movie" format - if we're lucky. At worst (and I'll be honest, it's closer to "at worst" than "at best"), it's a complete and utter disappointment, and much like a spoonful of Draino, it'll leave you hollow inside.