★★★★

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.