Near the start of The Naked Gun , Liam Neeson’s Frank Drebin Jr. kneels before a wall-mounted photo of his late father: Leslie Nielsen, legendary doofus cop. One by one, other detectives—including Paul Walter Hauser’s Captain Ed Hocken Jr.—line up to tearfully address their own framed dads. Frank Jr. waxes poetic about his father, “I want to be just like you, but at the same time completely different and original.” There’s the reboot in a nutshell.

Akiva Schaffer’s The Naked Gun cannonballs into the absurdity of the original franchise. It’s packed with absolutely shameless fun: pratfalls, pun-heavy wordplay, deadpan chaos, and our bumbling, cocksure protagonist. The gags don’t let up. Frank gets handed a coffee at the most absurd intervals, over and over, and everyone throws themselve

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