Given that most comedy sequels already struggle to live up to the original films they follow, how well can two such sequels be expected to weather the passage of time thirty-plus years later? I asked myself that question and, honestly, braced for the worst when I sat down to binge both The Naked Gun 2 1/2: The Smell of Fear and The Naked Gun 33 1/3: The Final Insult back-to-back on the same night.
When I was a teenager, I thought the original 1988 version of The Naked Gun was about the funniest thing I’d ever seen. I couldn’t even count the number of times I rented that tape from the local video store. Revisiting the film recently, the jokes that once provoked convulsive laughter brought on something more like mild amusement instead. I still enjoyed it, but it’s not quite the comedy masterpiece I remembered.
If I recall the details correctly, I first caught The Naked Gun 2 1/2 during its VHS debut, and saw The Naked Gun 33 1/3 in the theater. I liked both well enough, but not to the same degree that I’d watch them over and over again like the first one. If anything, that may have actually benefited the movies over time, as I was less familiar with them and had forgotten most of the jokes.
| Titles: | The Naked Gun 2 1/2: The Smell of Fear The Naked Gun 33 1/3: The Final Insult |
| Years of Release: | 1991 1994 |
| Directors: | David Zucker (The Smell of Fear) Peter Segal (The Final Insult) |
| Watched On: | Paramount+ |
| Also Available On: | Blu-ray Fubo TV Hoopla Various VOD rental and purchase platforms |
As far as sequels are concerned, The Naked Gun fared much better for the Zucker-Abrahams-Zucker comedy team than their Airplane! had. Infamously, when Airplane! proved to be a surprise blockbuster, studio Paramount demanded a quickie follow-up. Because the creators wanted nothing to do with that, Airplane II: The Sequel was rushed to theaters without their involvement, to disastrous results for everyone. Despite that experience, director David Zucker returned for The Naked Gun 2 1/2 in 1991. Although collaborators Jerry Zucker and Jim Abrahams split off on their own independent projects, they at least endorsed The Smell of Fear and remained attached as executive producers, while their friend Pat Proft (who’d also contributed to Police Squad! and the first Naked Gun) worked on the screenplay with David.
In the first of its absurdities, The Smell of Fear moves Det. Frank Drebin and his entire department from Los Angeles to Washington, D.C. with very little explanation provided. Police Squad is assigned to protect eminent scientist Dr. Meinheimer (Richard Griffiths) in anticipation of his delivering a critical report to then-President George Bush (the senior) that will reshape America’s energy policy. Naturally, Meinheimer is expected to advise the President to move the country toward renewable energy sources and pull back from its reliance on fossil fuels. That doesn’t sit too well with evil oil company CEO Quentin Hapsburg (Robert Goulet), who kidnaps and replaces Meinheimer with a double that he’s hired to give the President a very different recommendation.
With this plot, the sequel clearly has ambitions to deliver more political and topical satire than the first Naked Gun had. To both the film’s credit and the real world’s detriment, the main themes remain relevant, even timely, three decades later. Still, this is a Naked Gun movie, not Wag the Dog. Most of the humor is slapstick-y and juvenile, as it should be. The pun- and innuendo-heavy dialogue is crude, and the sight gags (especially a lengthy montage of clichéd sexual metaphors) far from subtle. One of its best bits is a spoof of the prior year’s blockbuster Ghost, which had marked ZAZ founding member Jerry Zucker’s attempt to transition into drama.
At the time, reviews for The Naked Gun 2 1/2 were mixed, many declaring the comedy a case of diminishing returns. Nevertheless, the film was another huge box office hit, even bigger than the first one had been. Watching it again now, even though some of the references feel dated and a mild homophobic streak has aged like milk, I think the sequel has a pretty strong ratio of good jokes to bad. Dare I say it, The Smell of Fear may even be a little funnier overall than The Naked Gun – though, as I suggested earlier, that may largely come down to my own over-familiarity with the first movie. Had I watched this one nearly as many times, the jokes probably would have felt less fresh in this viewing.
Three years later, Frank Drebin returned for The Final Insult. Sadly, by this point, even David Zucker stepped back into only a co-writing role. Directing duties fell to Peter Segal, who would go on to have an uneven career with both hits (Anger Management, 50 First Dates) and misses (Grudge Match).
The Naked Gun 33 1/3 opens on a really strong note with an inspired and really damn hilarious parody of The Untouchables. The plot then moves the characters back to Los Angeles (again, unexplained), where Frank must foil the plans of a mad bomber (Fred Ward) who’s been hired by terrorists to strike a very public and visible target while the entire world watches. Namely, he’s going to blow up the Academy Awards.
The Final Insult dials back the political humor to focus instead on safer pop culture references that audiences of the day would easily recognize. Among its many targets are Jurassic Park, Thelma & Louise, Basic Instinct, The Crying Game, and Beavis & Butthead. By and large, the comedy is cruder and more sitcom-y than its predecessors – which I fully recognize is an ironic complaint about a crude comedy series literally based on a TV sitcom. Regardless, many of the gags feel dumbed-down and hacky, and the third movie has far too many race and gay jokes that have aged poorly.
The Naked Gun 33 1/3 also suffers the misfortune of being costar O.J. Simpson’s final feature film before his notorious white Bronco car chase and arrest on murder charges just three months after its theatrical release. Watching Simpson in any of these Naked Gun movies will likely be an uncomfortable experience for anyone who lived through those events, but his appearance in this one hits harder knowing how close the movie’s timing was to his scandal and downfall.
During the film’s casting, Baywatch babe Pamela Anderson had been offered the role of the villain’s girlfriend, but had to decline due to a schedule conflict. (Anderson would eventually join the franchise much later for the 2025 reboot.) In her place, troubled model and Playboy playmate Anna Nicole Smith was given the job instead. Although she certainly had the cleavage to fill Pamela Anderson’s considerable bustier, acting was not particularly one of Smith’s strengths, and she’d be mocked afterward with a Razzie Award for the part. (So would Simpson – arguably unfairly, as his performance as the Nordberg character is fine outside the context of the actor’s real life.)
All that said, for as much as it may be the weakest installment, the third movie is still funny in general. The Oscar ceremony climax makes some very spot-on digs against the inanity of award shows and celebrity culture. I swear, a joke about a Best Picture nominee called Sawdust and Mildew could easily be a clip from a real Oscars telecast.
I find that the best way to look at The Naked Gun is not as a trilogy of theatrical feature films, but rather as an ongoing comedy series, much like the Police Squad! TV show that spawned it. From that perspective, even if specific episodes have their ups and downs, the property is very enjoyable in its totality.
Video Streaming
Both of the Naked Gun sequels were released onto Blu-ray simultaneously, first as separate SKUs in 2015 and later bundled together (along with the first movie) into a Naked Gun Trilogy collection in 2017. As of this writing, only the original film is currently available on 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray physical media. However, I found all three of them streaming in 4K on Paramount+. Even though I felt a compulsion (that, to be honest, I soon regretted) to buy the first movie on disc, I decided that streaming was a smarter option for the other two.
Most of the observations I made in my review of The Naked Gun (linked below) apply to the 4K versions of the sequels as well. Both films were remastered into their theatrical 1.85:1 aspect ratio, slightly letterboxed in comparison to the older, full-screen 16:9 Blu-rays. None of these movies actually need to be watched in 4K. Despite the higher resolution, image quality is quite soft, often frustratingly so. Perhaps that problem is exacerbated a little by the compression for streaming, but even the physical copy of the original film isn’t much better.
Colors and contrast are decent enough, but gain nothing notable from HDR. Film grain is a little noisy, and sometimes clumps or freezes unnaturally on screen. A disc release with a higher bit-rate might help to alleviate that issue. Personally, I don’t consider it a deal-breaker. These movies all have very functional, workmanlike cinematography that, effectively, looks the same from one entry to the next. They’re perfectly watchable even in basic HD.
On streaming, the audio is provided in Dolby Digital 5.1 format, which is also about as adequate as it needs to be. Surround action is mild. Dialogue and zinger sound effects are clear. That’s all there is to it.
Related
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- Fred Ward
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