The Naked Gun (2025)

I've seen a lot of love for The Naked Gun. I've seen people mention how they were pleasantly surprised by it. Some have laughed harder than they've laughed in years. Some say it's a perfect blend of homage and something a bit new. 

I didn't love it, although I will say that a few moments surprised a big laugh out of me. It was certainly a bit better than I expected, considering my apprehension at the poor trailers.

Liam Neeson is Frank Drebin Jr. He ends up investigating some crimes that seem to incriminate the rich and powerful Richard Cane (Danny Huston). He also ends up connecting with Beth Davenport (Pamela Anderson), the sister of someone who recently died in mysterious circumstances. 

Directed by Akiva Schaffer, who also co-wrote the screenplay with Dan Gregor and Doug Mand, it soon becomes clear that this is something made with the right intentions. While a couple of moments play with the action comedy style I was worried it would focus on, the rest of the film has the expected barrage of visual gags and wordplay, and there's an attempt to maintain an impressive gag rate for every part of the 85-minute runtime.

Highlights include a wild montage sequence showing a whirlwind romance and a snowman being built, a gunfight with Drebin Jr. trying to keep things non-fatal, a running gag about coffee being supplied to our leads, and a genuinely fantastic twist on the standard "pretty boy in prison" speech. But you also get gags that inevitably repeat things that were better the first time around, a really weak sequence showing body-cam footage of Drebin Jr. searching for a toilet after poor diet choices, and a thermal imaging set-piece that reminded me of sillier, and more fun, shadowplay gags in Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me. It's also really disappointing to see them not do more with a character named as Not Nordberg Jr., when more laughs could have been mined from him denying his parentage (but maybe that's just me, and I don't blame the film-makers for staying away from what would have been a potential minefield).

Neeson and co. all do a good job, generally playing it straight, which was always the secret to making these films even funnier. It's just a shame that they make Drebin Jr. capable enough to fend off some villains on purpose, considering how often the original character would stumble his way into his main victories, but the combination of ineptitude and capability works for Neeson. Anderson is also a lot of fun, particularly when performing some jazz. Huston is amusingly suave and cocky, and there are strong supporting turns from Paul Walter Hauser (Ed Hocken Jr.), Kevin Durand (a henchman named Sig Gustafson), and CCH Pounder as the angry and exasperated Chief Davis. 

It all could have been much worse, but I'm not sure if I enjoyed this more because of my apprehension and low expectations or if I am just one of the few not drinking the kool-aid. While I didn't hate it, I laughed much more at a few other comedies released in the past few years. In fact, I laughed more at every episode of Angie Tribeca when that used to be on TV. 

5/10

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Chip 'n' Dale: Rescue Rangers (2022)

I was really happy when I saw the trailer for Chip 'n' Dale: Rescue Rangers. It looked like a hell of a lot of fun. Finding out that it was being delivered by a couple of the main figures behind Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping just made me even more keen to see it. Then I started watching it, the smile fading from my face quicker with each passing minute. You can find a lot of people around who really liked this movie. I'm not one of them. There are some good gags, but I'll attempt to highlight some of the biggest problems I had with the film here.

Having gone on separate career paths over the years, Chip (John Mulaney) and Dale (Andy Samberg) are reunited by a worrying phonecall from their friend, Monterey Jack (Eric Bana). Jack's addiction to stinky cheese has landed him in trouble with the wrong people, and he fears that he will soon be kidnapped, altered slightly, and trafficked to somewhere overseas that has characters creating bootleg versions of their works in perpetuity. Chip and Dale have to get back into old habits, hoping to crack the case in time to save their friend. They end up dealing with the police, in the form of Captain Putty (J. K. Simmons) and Officer Ellie Steckler (KiKi Layne), a variety of twisted cartoon creations, and a big baddie who goes by the name of Sweet Pete (Will Arnett).

When you look at the separate elements here, this is hard to view as anything other than an easy win. Chip ‘n’ Dale have always been my favourite animated chipmunks, nostalgia is arguably one of the most profitable filmic commodities right now, and the direction from Akiva Schaffer is decent throughout. There are also some fun gags in the script, written by Dan Gregor and Doug Mand, who also wrote the very enjoyable, although formulaic, Magic Camp and the less enjoyable Dolittle. Unfortunately, there aren’t enough good gags, especially when you have scenes too busy cramming in familiar personalities and entertainment archetypes. And those gags feel harder to laugh at when you realise the dark truth being reconfigured as something of an extended punchline throughout the second half of the film. I am willing to give both Gregor and Mand the benefit of the doubt, willing to believe that they were trying to pin the comedy on one serious point, on one subversive critique of the Disney studio system (of old?), but it doesn’t work. It rankles as much as that book by O. J. Simpson called “If I Did It: Confessions Of The Killer”. I would never want to read that book, and I never want to revisit this movie.

Another big problem that the movie has, and I know this will sound like a very silly complaint, is a lack of any rhyme or reason to the different types of characters. Who Framed Roger Rabbit is the nearest touchstone for this, underlined in a scene that actually has a cameo from the man himself, but that had clearly defined populations of people and toons. This doesn’t. You get some people living their lives, some cartoon characters everywhere, some cgi creations, muppety puppets, even the difference between Chip and Dale feels very random (one traditionally animated and one fleshed out into a CGI animated character). I know there is a reason for it, but the reason feels a bit arbitrary. 

Mulaney and Samberg are a great fit in the lead voice roles, Simmons is equally enjoyable, and there are entertaining turns from Arnett, Seth Rogen, Eric Bana, Tim Robinson (in the absolutely brilliant role of Ugly Sonic), and many others. Layne also does well, playing one of the few actual humans onscreen, and there’s no faulting the mix of live-action and animation throughout.

There are jokes that work, and some scenes are very funny. References to the uncanny valley are a lot of fun, as is a special appearance from Post Malone, and the meta commentary of older properties being freshened up for a new audience is surprisingly effective, acknowledging that all of these things are just as formulaic as standard sequels or remakes. This is fairly easy to like and enjoy, and many people have done just that. I just couldn’t manage it, especially when I kept circling back to the backstory of the villain (not to mention the way in which it attempts to put a darkly comic spin on people trafficking, which is equally misguided). So I guess I will just wait to see if the inevitable Roger Rabbit sequel will work better. There’s going to be a Roger Rabbit sequel now, right? Right??

4/10

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Dolittle (2020)

Here is a perfect example of a film that, while not necessarily as bad as the very worst of them, stands out in the way it saps some fun out of the central concept and makes everything worse by over-reliance on CGI to make everything possible.

Robert Downey Jr. plays the man who can talk to the animals, and he has decided that his Dolittle should have a strong Welsh accent. He also doesn't want to deal with people any more, spending many years locked away after the loss of his adventuring wife. He is forced to change, however, when young Tommy Stubbins (Harry Collett) sneaks in to his home, carrying with him a squirrel that he accidentally shot. Dolittle is also forced to accept a request to help save the life of Queen Victoria, who has been struck down by a mysterious malady that can only be cured by the fruit of a tree that nobody has ever managed to reach. It's time for an adventure, and Dolittle has plenty of animals to help him on his quest. He also has at least one person, Dr. Blair Müdfly (Michael Sheen ), trying to stop him from succeeding.

After a slightly unsteady start, scenes giving viewers a quick summary of the life of Dr. Dolittle and then showing him talking to animals IN animal noises before we then get to the more enjoyable format of Dolittle and the animals all talking in English, Dolittle becomes a decidedly okay bit of family entertainment. The animals are enjoyably exotic (with three of the main characters being a parrot, voiced by Emma Thompson, a gorilla, voiced by Rami Malek, and a polar bear, voiced by John Cena),  things look bright and lively enough, and there's a sense that the whole adventure could be a lot of fun.

It's a shame that the script, written by Doug Mand, Dan Gregor, and director Stephen Gaghan, seems to have been written with the idea that the visuals and lead performances will carry everything along. The lead performances, voice acting aside, don't feel as strong as they could be. Downey Jr. may be having fun, I guess, but he doesn't feel right for the role, as much as I often like his onscreen presence. Sheen is more enjoyable, a proper pantomime villain, and Antonio Banderas is a welcome addition, although not involved for long enough. The same can be said for Jim Broadbent. Young Collett does fine, but he's really there to be caught up in the middle of the animal shenanigans. And while it is a bit of a coup to rope in such a variety of big names, including Ralph Fiennes, Tom Holland, and Selena Gomez, for the animals, few of them really add to their roles, unlike the standout, an ostrich voiced by Kumail Nanjiani.

It's also a shame that the makers of the film have decided to let the visuals carry so much of it when the visuals are, despite the fact that some may find me overly critical here, a bloody mess. So many scenes lose any sense of magic because it feels like CGI interacting with CGI, against a CGI background, with some more CGI being used to add flourishes here and there. I wouldn't mind if it was better, and some of the scenes have to contain what I assume is a lot of seamless CGI complementing the action, but some moments are jarring in how obviously fake they look. There's one scene in which Tommy is being taken on the back of a giraffe to catch a departing ship that looks, well, it looks as if it could have been lifted directly from some high-quality BBC programme from the early 2000s.

Younger viewers should find enough to enjoy, and there's an amusing fart gag during the finale that will prompt giggles, but this is a horrible attempt to reinvigorate a property that was handled better back in the late '90s. Maybe we'll get something better next time, when someone more suitable is put in the lead role.

4/10

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