Review of Naked Gun 2 1/2: The Smell Of Fear

Introduction

Back in 1982 a TV series called Police Squad screened in the States. Very much in the mould of the great 1980 spoof “Airplane” the show was full of slapstick humour and generally silly laughs. I don’t know why it only ran for 6 episodes but in 1988 the idea behind Police Squad was resurrected for the spoof movie Naked Gun, then again in 1991 for the follow-up – The Smell of Fear, in which all the regular cast members of Leslie Nielsen, Priscilla Presley, George Kennedy and O.J Simpson returned for yet another selection of silly jokes and slapstick humour.

I love a good laugh and this movie is just my cup of tea but being an older movie that could be classed as a back catalogue title I was eager to see how this movie would be treated on DVD.

Video

The 1.78:1 ratio anamorphic transfer is very well done. The picture quality on this disc is very good and could only be bettered if it was just a touch sharper, and I mean just a touch as it’s pretty much spot on already. It’s nice to see a great quality picture on a movie such as this, thumbs up here.

Audio

The Dolby Digital 5.1 audio track is excellent throughout. It’s especially good when you take into consideration that most of the scenes focus on the dialogue. The voice is clear and unmuffled whilst the other channels are used to excellent effect for spot sounds and general ambience / background sound.

Features

I was expecting a poor set of extras on this disc. As mentioned it’s the sort of movie that would be released as back catalogue fodder so a trailer would have been a result and yes we have a trailer, well 2 actually. The real surprise here though is that you get a feature length audio commentary with David Zucker (Director), Robert Weiss (Producer) and with Peter Tilden Hosting. It’s a bit barren in parts as they sit and watch the movie but it’s funny to hear them genuinely laugh at some of the jokes. You get a decent amount of background information about the movie and the filming however their attempts to add some humour to their voice over generally fails miserably. It’s great to see some extra effort put into this one however I would have liked more, deleted scenes and out-takes would have been bliss.

Conclusion

The story this time round is . . . just as unimportant as it always is in this type of movie so I won`t waste your time telling you the details suffice to say it`s packed full of laughs throughout.

This is the type of comedy you either love or hate and I happen to absolutely love it. The sheer silliness of the humour is right up my street and this outing is just as amusing as the original Naked Gun. Allot of people shared the opinion that the sequel wasn’t quite as good but I still laughed heartily throughout and would say it rivals, without bettering, the original.

In 1980 a movie called Airplane launched the whole spoof movie genre upon a laugh hungry public. One of the original characters in Airplane was the Doctor Rumak, played by the excellent straight-faced Leslie Nielsen. This quality was obviously picked up on as he was chosen to head up police squad as Lt. Frank Drebin, taking the staring role in all 3 Naked Gun movies and also numerous other spoofs. Most of Leslie Neilsens other spoof movies have been somewhat poor however he’s on top form for this movie.

More than just being about stupid gags it is really Leslie Nielsen that makes it all work. He is the master of the straight face, whilst all sorts of lunacy is going on about him he manages to retain a serious outlook throughout and the amusement from that often surpasses the original joke. George Kennedy, Captain Ed Hocken, plays his gags with almost equally amusing straightness and along with the naivety of O.J Simpson the 3 of them make a great team. Priscilla Presley is excellent as Frank Drebin’s love interest and counter balances Leslie Nielsen perfectly. The villains of the piece, mainly Robert Goulet as Quentin Hapsburg, are suitably cheesy and predictable and really only serve as plot devices for the main 4 characters.

A hilarious movie and an excellent quality disc only let down slightly by the extras and . Turn off your brain, sit back and enjoy one of the funniest spoof films ever made. Highly recommended.