The Naked Gun 2 1/2: The Smell of Fear (1991) / Comedy-Action

MPAA Rated: PG-13 for some crude and sexual humor, brief nudity, and language
Running Time: 85 min.

Cast: Leslie Nielsen, Priscilla Presley, George Kennedy, O.J. Simpson, Robert Goulet, Richard Griffiths, Jacqueline Brookes, John Roarke, Margery Ross, Mel Torme (cameo), Zsa Zsa Gabor (cameo), 'Weird Al' Yankovic (cameo), David Zucker (cameo)
Director: David Zucker
Screenplay: David Zucker, Pat Proft
Review published October 13, 2006

Perhaps it isn't as knee-slapping funny as the first Naked Gun film, but there's still plenty to laugh at in this enjoyable sequel.  For those that have enjoyed the original television series, "Police Squad", as well as 1988's The Naked Gun, you already know the drill.  Plenty of screwball comedy, slapstick, sight gags, stupid word play, and overall silliness is all you will get for the 85 minutes duration, where nothing is serious, not even the end credits.

In this "episode", Lt. Frank Drebin (Nielsen, Nuts) is, in his own inept fashion, out to thwart the plans of some power-hungry heads of industry trying to make sure that oil, coal, and nuclear energy maintain their stronghold.  To assure this, they seek to replace the leading proponent of reusable energies, Dr. Albert S. Mannheimer (Griffiths, Sleepy Hollow), with a lookalike, so that he may deliver a speech to the President and others to reaffirm their position that environmentally unsound energy is still the way to go. 

There's not a great deal one can say about this sequel, as I think that everyone who might be interested in it will only want to know one thing: is it funny?  The answer is in the funny bone of the beholder, of course, but I think that if yours was tickled by the first film, it will certainly continue to be so by this sequel, although not quite as much.

Like all laugh-a-second comedies, some gags work and some don't.  The ones that do are the ones you'll remember and there are at least a dozen of memorable sight gags and funny lines interspersed throughout Naked Gun 2 1/2 to make it worth the meager 85 minutes spent.  For many fans, the code phrase will always be what Drebin says after swimming through raw sewage -- "I love it!"

-- Followed by The Naked Gun 33 1/3: The Final Insult

Qwipster's rating:

©2006 Vince Leo