Review of The Naked Gun 2½: The Smell of Fear (1991) by Jesse O — 22 Sep 2015

No review last night because I didn't finish watching the movie I started watching the day before yesterday, Down and Out in Beverly Hills, the next review. So, I went back to another of the beloved films of my youth.

I already went on this tangent with my last review, how I loved Leslie Nielsen and the Naked Gun trilogy as a child. Sadly, though, this sequel didn't hold up as well as the third one did. Though I would still say that this is a considerably better movie than the third one.

I just think that the film is fresher and there's not as much wear and tear from it being the third film in a series that has, literally, been all about the sight gags, the slapstick and silliness.

The more you rely on shtick the harder it gets in the long run to maintain a high quality of jokes. If you doubt this, then just look at a series like Family Guy and then get back to me. With that said, however, while the film may not have held up as well as Top Secret, another Zucker/Abraham/Zucker production, it's still a lot of fun to watch.

There's a lot of funny gags and a slapstick in the film. Going over them would simply be pointless because there's so many of them and they wouldn't make sense out of context, but, again, if you have any knowledge of the Naked Gun trilogy then you would know pretty much exactly what to expect.

I don't think this is bound to be a long review simply because of the fact that I can't go into the actual content of the film itself, there's simply so much stuff thrown out there that this would be the longest review I've ever done if I decided to actually run down the film.

And I've written some pretty long and rambling reviews on here, so you can imagine how long it'd be. Anyway, the point is that this is a good film. It's a blast to watch, even if it doesn't hold up as well in the 24 years since its release.

Good stuff and I'd still easily recommend it as a Netflix watch.