Play it straight. That was always the key. Certainly, it was what made Leslie Neilsen, an erstwhile straight actor, such a gift in the casting of 1988’s The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad, not to mention Airplane before it. Neilsen shot down the barrel as the OG Lt. Frank Drebin and the writing did the rest. Emulation, then, proves an early win in Akiva Schaffer’s remake, which is titled more simply The Naked Gun, with Liam Neeson pitch perfect as Lt. Frank Drebin Jr. (‘Love you Daddy’). Right out of the blocks, in an opening swing at Mission: Impossible silliness, Neeson has the brief covered. He’s a stupidly safe pair of hands in a riotously stupid 85 minutes.
Set on a pastel painted Earth, parallel to our own and, thus far, unburdened by the weight of the cumbersome perplexities of the MCU, The Fantastic Four: First Steps serves up a breezy continuation of Marvel’s recent revival in legitimate entertainment. It’s ‘no homework required’ – in the words of Kevin Feige himself – fun and so game for good times that it squeezes the titular quartet’s entire origins story into a five minute montage. Wise move. Those in the know, know already that the Four are to join the main fray in next year’s hotly anticipated Avengers: Doomsday. Those who couldn’t care less can sit back, relax, and switch off – assuming they haven’t already, in a different sense of the phrase. Never mind first step, it’s a stride back in the right direction.
It’s hard not to feel for Henry Cavill on watching James Gunn’s revitalised Superman, freshly rendered, as it is, in the sort of bright hues that have proven anathema to the character since 2013. As other turns attest, Cavill has charisma and charm aplenty but sprawled terribly across a decade of moribund self-indulgence. His last turn, a bum note cameo in Dwayne Johnson puff project Black Adam, was meant to herald production on a long-gestated Man of Steel sequel. Alas, it was but ill conceived clickbait and soon followed by Cavill’s unceremonious shelving. His replacement is the younger, less seasoned but more baby-faced David Corenswet. On this debut alone, we might hope for a more dignified run. Gunn’s Superman is quite notably flawed but at least knows its raison d’etre: to entertain.
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