The Naked Gun – 5 stars*
Liam Neeson is an inspired successor to Lt. Frank Drebben. Proof? His Sam Spade voiceover estimation of the physical gifts of Pamela Anderson.
“And she had the type of bottom that would make any toilet beg for the brown.”
Enough said.
And if you are surprised by Neeson’s comedic chops, you should not be:
*You have to love this stuff, which I do.
filmvetter 
I love this stuff, too, but this reboot, while it had its moments, fell well short of the original.
Liam Neeson is a good actor, but his voice doesn’t have the clarity to deliver some of the jokes. My hearing is quite good, but I was straining to catch some of the lines. Neeson lacks Leslie Nielsen’s deliberate and clear enunciation, with its strategic pauses before nailing the punchlines.
Neeson is 73 and looks it. When Nielsen starred in the first NAKED GUN film, he was a great-looking 62. Neeson’s costar, Pamela Anderson, is 58 and looks even older. Nielsen’s costar, Priscilla Presley, was only 45 in the first NAKED GUN and looked great for her age. (More on this later. See below)
The script lacked the flow of the Zucker/Abrahams films, where one laugh or sight gag ran easily into the next. One could see the reboot trying its best, but the effort seemed more heroic than the result.
There were some undeniably funny moments. I loved the interaction between Neeson and the bartender (what follows is my best paraphrase):
BARTENDER: “You shot my brother.”
NEESON: “That could be thousands of people.”
BARTENDER: “He was running away.”
NEESON: “Still hundreds”
BARTENDER: “In the back.”
NEESON: “Okay, fifty.”
BARTENDER: “He was white.”
NEESON [with a look of recognition]: “Oh, so you’re Ron Codger’s brother.”
That was my biggest laugh of the night. There were others, but that was the biggest.
When I saw this, they were showing the clips from the previous movies, and by the clips, those movies were better – but that was by the clips. There were duds and groans and a few boners on those pictures as well, so I don’t recall the flow being much different. And I still loved them as I loved this one – the homers make up for the sacrifice flies.
I’m not sure Leslie Nielsen ever seemed younger than Neeson to me; he always seemed like an older man in my eyes. And Presley was, if memory served, filmed behind a Joan Collinsesque nylon stocking (Anderson does look a little rough). Your point about younger actors is well taken, but Val Kilmer in “Top Secret” was his first big role; he never would have taken it after having a resume’ like Chalamet or Tatum (though the latter would be a better target given his openness to silly fare).
Yes, agreed, with that white mane of hair, Nielsen looked as old as sin to me when I saw him in NAKED GUN.
But he didn’t look unhealthy. Even in the AIRPLANE! movie, Nielsen looked old to me, though he is younger in that film (53) than I am today.
But Neeson’s face looks unhealthy – those glassy eyes and wrinkles in the wrong places.
In any case, I shouldn’t dwell on it. His partner, played by the dude that played Richard Jewell in the Clint Eastwood film of the same name, is 38. I thought his role was a cypher, not nearly as memorable as the George Kennedy character it was based on and whose son he is supposed to play. Danny Huston, who I thought looked good for the role, is 63. He would’ve looked more appropriate in the role of Frank Drebin than Neeson.