It’s official runtime is 84 minutes, so no matter what, it will be a quick experience. That is one of the shorter major releases I’ve seen in a long time.
Which studio is releasing it? If it’s from one affiliated with one of the streaming services I already subscribe to, I might just wait to watch it on TV.
Looking on the IMDb, it says that the distributors are Paramount in the U.S., the U.K., Canada, Argentina, Brazil, Spain, and Mexico, Sony Pictures in Germany, and United International Pictures in Singapore.
So most likely it will be available on Paramount+. At the moment, I have a subscription to that.
If we can talk “range” Peter Sellers could do everything. Comedy (most things), Deadpan (Pink Panther, Being There). As could Alec Guinness.
Alan Arkin could do anything, He did comedies, he played a sort of deadpan Russian guy who was somewhat slapstick silly yet his character was earnest (The Russians are coming), and one of the scariest villains on film (Wait Until Dark). I reckon the fact that Sellers was still alive and the material wasn’t good - he gave it a good go. Yet to replace Sellars - for any great actor to try and replace an iconic actor in a given role - is a steep uphill climb.
The brilliance of getting Nielson was he was almost unknown and certainly never, ever as a comedy actor. Yet he never in any of Police Squad! or Naked Guns was anything but the persona of a serious guy. Police Squad! got canned because it was one of the first (comedy - though MASH had one too because that war was hilarious) shows without a laugh track.
I’ve no doubt Liam Neeson can do deadpan. I’d have preferred someone like Ewan McGregor or Seth MacFarlane the producer.
I hope instead of the cherry-top police car crashing into a garbage can and initiating a 10 foot shootout, that the first 10 minutes are actually sans any gags. Let the first one be that stupid OJ sightgag. And if Liam is using an American accent that to me will be hilarious.
If we’re voting, as in Rotten Tomatoes, I predict * SPLAT *
On the latest “Lonely Island and Seth Meyers Podcast” episode, Akiva Schaffer pointed out that all 3 original Naked Gun movies were less than 90 minutes long and they intentionally tried to keep the runtime equally short.
Early reviews look good, too.
92% positive on Rotten Tomatoes with 100+ reviews.
78 on Metacritic.
Airplane!, Airplane! 2, and Top Secret also all clocked in at <= 90 minutes.
That seems about the right length for this sort of movie. More than that, and I think they’d start to overstay their welcome.
I initially thought, “Is that the name of the stage musical version?”
They said the rendition of “The white zone vs the The red zone” brought down the house in Broadway
I’ve got a free movie ticket I need to use by the end of the month so I think I’ll be seeing this tonight
I’m seeing it this weekend. I don’t normally do opening weekends but this feels like a movie that would benefit from the energy of a full theater.
How much appeal did the original have to folks of our age group, back then? I suspect that those of us who enjoyed (and still fondly remember the appeal of) it, will not be as tickled by the same kind of schtick now.
Whether this one will find a new, younger crowd to entertain, will be interesting. Plenty of Boomer favorites continue to be discovered anew by “modern” audiences.
Akiva Schaffer also mentioned that the original Naked Gun (in 1988) was spoofing tropes of ~20-30 year old police shows, so his inspiration was police shows that are ~20-30 years old nowadays.
Naked Gun is currently getting 91% of the 139 critics reviews it’s gotten so far.
I meant to write that it’s getting 91% fresh of the 139 critics reviews it’s gotten so far.
Saw this tonight with a full audience. Liam Neeson was there for a quick intro to the film. I laughed so much! This movie is so stupid but so goddamn funny. I’d say the audience was largely 20-40 year olds and there was loud continual laughter for the whole film. It really was joke after joke after joke, with so many sight gags in the background. I really enjoyed it.
Saw it, it was really good. Hit the tone exactly right. So many remakes/reboots are just soulless corporate laziness but this clearly was made by people who loved the material they were trying to re-create. Some of the jokes were a little too dumb but that was true of the originals too. Great use of dead ban, tons of little sight gags that you’ll probably miss a few on the first watch. It’s basically a faithful recreation of the deadpan over the top spoof that we’ve been missing over the last 30 years.
Three thumbs up!
?? Is this a typo for deadpan?