Sequel City — The Naked Gun 2½
Published by Pop Bunker, December 14, 2010
Actor Leslie Nielsen passed away a couple of weeks ago at age 84. He’s best remembered for his roles in classic comedies Airplane! and The Naked Gun, and he acted for decades before that as a dramatic actor on television. And he always seemed like a genuinely cool guy to me. In order to honor Nielsen, Sequel City examines the second (movie) appearance of Lt. Frank Drebin, The Naked Gun 2 ½: The Smell of Fear.
It’s 1991, and President George H.W. Bush has taken time out from enjoying Dana Carvey’s impression of him on SNL to worry about the nation’s energy consumption. In the opening scene, Bush agrees to follow whatever influential energy scientist Dr. Meinheimer recommends at an upcoming speech. The bad guys (heads of oil, coal, and nuclear companies) know Meinheimer will push for greener energy sources like solar, and they want to shut him up. They try to blow up Meinheimer’s institute with him in it, and only narrowly fail.
Lieutenant Frank Drebin of Police Squad! is called in to investigate the bombing, and wouldn’t you know it, his old flame from the first movie works at the Meinheimer Institute! What are the chances of that? Jane Spencer (Priscilla Presley) is currently dating the lead bad guy, played by the villainous Robert Goulet. Of course, she doesn’t know he’s the lead bad guy…but they never do, do they? Ladies in movies, I mean.
Drebin has to deal with his broken heart while he tries to crack the case of the bombing. Meanwhile, Goulet and the bad guys make good on their Plan B—kidnap Meinheimer and replace him with a double. Without knowing it at first, Drebin and Spencer are in a race against time to save the doctor and get him to the energy speech.
Spoof sequels are notoriously spotty in quality—Airplane II: The Sequel and the Scary Movie franchise are evidence of that. Overall, The Naked Gun 2½ isn’t as funny as the original. There aren’t as many awesomely hilarious bits, the format isn’t as fresh, and the villain isn’t as good (not that Goulet had a chance in hell of besting Ricardo Montalban). But perhaps worst of all, the jokes seem more dated. Although the original was released three years earlier than the sequel, The Naked Gun 2 ½ seems much more rooted in late ‘80s/early ‘90s pop culture than the original was. This is a problem because somehow 1991 was 20 years ago.
But while The Naked Gun 2 ½ is not as good as the original, it is not an embarrassment either. Both Naked Gun sequels are very capable follow-ups, and a big part of this success is the continuity of the three films. Nielsen and Presley are great together throughout the series, and Drebin sidekicks George Kennedy and O.J. Simpson are good as well. (I’m going to gloss over the O.J. stuff here—the alleged double-murdering really doesn’t come up in the movies.) The chemistry of this gang was perfect, and the sheer fact that they remained together is more than most sequels can boast.
Beyond this, producers/writers/director combo of David Zucker, Jim Abrahams, and Jerry Zucker (and writer Pat Proft) were together throughout. These filmmakers were not the originators of the spoof genre—Monty Python and Mel Brooks were doing it earlier, just to name a couple of the giants—but the team was responsible for a distinctive brand of first-class comedy from the late ‘70s through the early ‘90s. (Besides the Naked Gun series, they did The Kentucky Fried Movie, Airplane!, Top Secret and Hot Shots.) ZAZ’s spoofs were relentless assaults of deadpan obliviousness, corny sight gags, and the occasional dirty joke slipped in. This style wasn’t easy to keep up—imitators never measured up, and they themselves stopped producing movies in this vein after a while. Still, The Naked Gun 2 ½ is the ZAZ Style nearly at its best.
This style demanded a bumbling hero in the lead (as does most comedy, I suppose), and no one fit the clueless deadpan part better than Leslie Nielsen. Maybe it was his work as a “regular” actor that helped him pull off Drebin so well. The original television series (1982’s Police Squad!—out on DVD, by the way) mocked the rampant melodrama of ‘60s, ‘70s, and ‘80s police procedurals. (Seriously, if you think tv sucks now, switch on TV Land or the like sometime!)
Nielsen actually acted in a lot of those old shows, and he played it straight. Frank Drebin is never in on the joke, and as a result, we have a rock to cling to during his absurdist adventures. He is a bumbling fool to us, but not to the universe in which he lives, and never to himself. I love Will Ferrell, but I always hate the point in all his movies when his character realizes what a pathetic fudge-up he really is. Frank Drebin never has those moments.
And why should he? This is a silly, ridiculous world he’s living in, and he’s a ridiculously silly character—why bring reality into it? In 2010, during the Age of Apatow and television like The Office and How I Met Your Mother, comedy is more and more self-aware. Smarter. I don’t think this is necessarily bad, and I like Apatow and those shows. But I do think there should be a place for wonderfully stupid comedies again…for well-done wonderfully stupid comedies of course…like The Naked Gun 2 ½.
Entertaining Scenes:
(Note: I am purposely restraining from describing these scenes in any detail. I don’t want to ruin the gags for anyone.)
Fancy pre-credits White House dinner. Barbara Bush, First Lady at the time, gets roughed up a bit in the name of slapstick comedy.
The credits sequence, Naked Gun-style.
Former lovers Lt. Frank Drebin (Leslie Nielsen) and Jane Spencer (Priscilla Presley) reunite at a bar for hijinks and sad memories. Good framed-picture jokes are rare and should be treasured.
A trip to a sex shop leads to a hostage situation for Lt. Drebin and a sticky situation for colleague O.J. Simpson.
Another fancy Washington dinner. Incredible George Kennedy bit and a funny dance number.
Presley relaxes at home. Scattered pictures…of the smiles we left behind…
Nielsen goes into the bad guy’s lair.
The climax at the Big Important Speech.
Credit gags. If I ever direct a motion picture, I’m doing some of these for sure.
There’s so much more for me to write about with this movie, this series, and this actor. As you can probably tell, I love it all, but it definitely feels weird writing seriously about something so sublimely absurd. So I’ll end it here—and say thanks, Leslie. We’ll miss you.
Next time at Sequel City, we will examine a beloved holiday sequel. They are admittedly rare, but this one is a true classic. Until then…