THE NAKED GUN 33 1/3: THE FINAL INSULT (1994) Reviewed by David Wilcock (C)1998 David Wilcock
Starring Leslie Nielson, Priscilla Presley, George Kennedy, O.J Simpson, Fred Ward and Kathleen Freeman
Directed By Peter Segal
Leslie Nielson returns as bumbling Lieutenant Frank Drebin, in the most slapdash Naked Gun film. Although offering some good laughs, the film suffers from some lulls. The good thing about The Naked Gun and it's sequel was that if one gag failed, another one would appear in about 0.5 seconds that made you laugh out loud. Sadly, this film has a a good laugh every four bad gags, which is not good, considering the time gap between each bad laugh is.
The 'plot' goes as thus. Drebin has retired from police squad, settled down with this now-wife Jane (Presley), and is enjoying married life. However, Drebin's chief, Captain Ed Hocken (Kennedy) wants to call Drebin onto another case, involving mad bomber Rocco, played by Ward, who is going to blow up OSCAR night. Drebin agress, Jane finds out, she leaves him, and Drebin has to carry on the case without her.
What follows is 1 hour 20 minutes of some great gags (the first five minutes is a brilliant The Untouchabless spoof) some mediocre laughs, and some downright awful laughs. This film is much more heavily slapstick orientated than the first two Naked Gun pictures, and relies less on verbal humour. The film moves along at an incredible pace though, this is defintely the most fast paced Naked Gun film.
The performances are reasonable. Nielson pulls the usual mugging and grinning at the camera, Presley is alright, but Kennedys performance seems much different from the first two films, much more hyper than before, and wasn't very good. Simpson is alright as Nordberg, Drebins friend, but nothing speacial, and the same goes for Ward. The best performance, then, goes to Kathleen Freeman (the old woman in The Goonies), who, even though she's playing the same character she's done in every other film she's been in, is still very funny. There is also some 'acting' from Anna Nicole Smith, but thankfully she gets about seven lines, and didn't feature in another major film after this one.
For all it's faults, though, Naked Gun 33 1/3 does deliver the occasional laugh out loud gag. But it's missing something the other two films had, which is a lot of laughs. It could be because of the new director, Peter Segal, who never really matches David Zuckers way of directing a good gag. Jim Abrahams and Jerry Zucker have disappeared from the writers credits (they wrote The Naked Gun but not the sequel) which could explain again why there are less laughs. Or, it could just boil down to that there are no good laughs left anymore in The Naked Gun series. The Naked Gun 2 1/2 petered out a bit, so maybe the Naked Gun films should of ended there.
In the end, then, although it has some good gags (The Untouchables spoof, a great seventies spoof) it proves to be ultimately dissapointing. The Naked Gun films should now be laid to rest, and Lt. Frank Drebin should retire for good.
OVERALL=**1/2 out of *****
REVIEW BY DAVID WILCOCK (C)1998
DAVID WILCOCK david.wilcock@btinternet.com Visit the Wilcock Movie Page! http://wilcockmovie.home.ml.org -OR- http://www.geocities.com/hollywood/9061
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