Review of Top Secret! (1984) by Daniel T — 05 Apr 2008
It just doesn't get better for this than Val Kilmer. That is for definite.
It just can't possibly get much better than this for members of the Zucker family.
"Airplane" and "The Naked Gun" have their merits (which are extremely high), but "Top Secret" is their greatest comedic achievement to date, and most likely, for all time (unless I'm way off, and Scary Movie 5 ends up really making me pee my pants. But somehow I doubt that will happen, since David Zucker is convinced that letting younger, unfunny writers do his script work is worth his time and trouble in directing.).
Anyway, this is apparently "Weird Al" Yankovic's favorite movie, and it's one of mine, too. The jokes are 98% hits, the songs are hilarious, the action scenes are actually decent for a screwball comedy, and besides all of this, you get to see Val Kilmer pretending to be some strange hybrid of Brian Wilson and Elvis.
And although that sounds really godawful, it works. IT WORKS. AND IT WORKS BETTER THAN JUST ABOUT ANY COMEDIC PREMISE HAS WORKED IN THE LAST 25 YEARS, WHICH IS WHY I'M SCREAMING ABOUT IT NOW.
SO GO WATCH "TOP SECRET". And do it as soon as you possibly can!
This review of Top Secret! (1984) was written by Daniel T on 05 Apr 2008.
Top Secret! has generally received positive reviews.
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