The Naked Gun (15, 85 minutes)

Verdict: Hits the target

Rating:

For those of you who remember the year 1982 — when Britain went to war over the Falkland Islands, Prince William was born and Ozzy Osbourne bit the head off a bat on stage — it looms large, if indirectly, on our cinema screens this week.

On American television back in 1982 a spoof cop show was launched: Police Squad!, created by the team behind the wildly successful movie Airplane!

As it happens Police Squad! didn't last long on TV — the ABC network whipped it off air after just four episodes — but it did introduce hapless LAPD detective Frank Drebin, wonderfully played by the Airplane! star Leslie Nielsen.

Six years later, the character bumbled his way through the first of The Naked Gun movies. It was outrageously silly, relentlessly crass, and a monumental hit.

Two sequels swiftly followed and did excellent box-office business, but the third film was nowhere near as hilarious as the original. 

The Naked Gun had run out of bullets, at least until this week's 'reboot', directed and co-written by Akiva Schaffer (whose last film was 2022's unexpectedly enjoyable Chip 'n' Dale: Rescue Rangers).

Naturally, the new version of The Naked Gun arrives with some question marks. Will it be as zany as it was? 

Even if it is, are cinema audiences likely to be as delighted by that zaniness as they were? In other words, have comedy tastes changed since the 1980s?

Moreover, can Liam Neeson, an actor much better known for splitting jaws than splitting sides, possibly be an effective replacement for Nielsen in the lead role?

From where I was sitting the answers were yes, yes, no and yes.

The Naked Gun is a hoot and Neeson's deadpan performance is pretty much pitch-perfect.

Not all the gags land — I reckon the ratio is half a dozen groans for every one laugh-out-loud — but they come so thick and fast that we only register the best of them.

Neeson plays Lieutenant Frank Drebin Jnr, the son of Nielsen's character, now deceased.

Addressing a photograph on the office wall of his late father, he asks him to send a sign — 'an owl, or something' — if the old man is looking down at him with pride.

Meanwhile, the other detectives in the department are also gazing up at pictures of their own dead fathers, teeing up a nicely-judged joke at the expense of O.J. Simpson (who starred in the first three films).

Later, there's a gag targeting Bill Cosby, another disgraced former icon. This is not what you'd call iconoclastic humour. It might even be the comedy-writing equivalent of shooting fish in a barrel. But it is funny, which is all that matters.

The plot, by contrast, hardly matters at all. Just in case you're interested, Drebin is investigating a bank heist to begin with, but after breaching behavioural guidelines is demoted to the traffic accident division and sent to look into a fatal crash in Malibu.

Soon it becomes clear, even to him, that the heist and the accident are connected.

More interestingly still, the sister of the crash victim is the curvaceously sexy Beth (Pamela Anderson).

'Take a chair,' he says, when she arrives in his office. 'No thank you, I have plenty of chairs at home,' she replies.

Be warned, some of what passes for comedy might be rejected by your average fifth-form revue, yet it all trips along with considerable elan, and in any case, gags barely worthy of a Christmas cracker have always been part of the Naked Gun brand.

When the film's baddie (Danny Huston, all but twirling a cloak) asks Drebin if he suspects foul play, Drebin ponders for a moment. 'No, a chicken probably wouldn't do this.'

As an audience, we either buy into it or we don't. But if you still need persuading, then be assured that there are one or two gags worth the price of admission on their own, including a corker about racist brutality in the police force — hardly the most tittersome of subjects but still ripe for satire.

Moreover, some of the physical comedy has echoes of peak Inspector Clouseau, and it's a lovely surprise to find that Neeson has it in him.

An even lovelier surprise is that the film passes just as quickly as the original, in under an hour and a half.

The Naked Gun hits cinemas tomorrow, Friday August 1