April Fools: Top Secret! (1984)

Another slice of comedic brilliance from the ZAZ team (David Zucker, Jim Abrahams and Jerry Zucker), Top Secret! remains, arguably, their most undervalued outing. It's easily as good as The Naked Gun, and it even comes close to the brilliance of Airplane!

Val Kilmer stars, in his first feature role, as smooth American rock and roll star, Nick Rivers. Nick is due to play a major gig in East Germany, unaware that his presence is viewed as nothing more than a distraction by East Germany, while some dastardly types plan the overthrow of the Western world. It's not long, however, until Nick is dragged into some danger and excitement by the lovely Hillary Flammond (Lucy Gutteridge), and then it's just a hop, skip and a straightened rug to an active role in the resistance movement.

Think of the zaniness that you love about other ZAZ movies, add some wonderful musical moments and a layer of exuberant surrealism, and you may start to understand why fans of Top Secret! tend to leap to its defence whenever it is overlooked or dismissed in any conversation about great comedy films. The jokes range from the sublime to the ridiculous, as you'd expect from the people involved, but the sublime gags are even more sublime than usual. Having said that, never underestimate the value of lines such as the following: "I know a little German. He's sitting over there."
And if you're not amused by a character named Deja Vu having his first line of dialogue questioning whether or not he has met someone before then I doubt you have a funny bone.

Kilmer is great in the lead role, every inch the cocky American teen idol, while Gutteridge is a lot of fun as the woman who drags him into the middle of the resistance movement. Warren Clarke makes a good villain, Christopher Villiers is amusing as the leader of the resistance, Michael Gough isn't in the movie for long enough, but gets one or two great lines, and Jim Carter steals a couple of scenes as the aforementioned Deja Vu.

If you like movies of this ilk, and have yet to enjoy the laughs that Top Secret! can offer, then I urge you to get to it as soon as possible. You won't be disappointed.

9/10

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Top-Secret-DVD-Val-Kilmer/dp/B00005UPO2/ref=sr_1_1?s=dvd&ie=UTF8&qid=1397284549&sr=1-1&keywords=top+secret+blu

April Fools: The Naked Gun (1988)

Anyone who watched Police Squad! was already aware of how great both it, and the main character (a cop named Frank Drebin, played by Leslie Nielsen), was. Unfortunately, not many people watched Police Squad! At least, not on the first time around anyway. It was poorly rated and cancelled after one season of six episodes. Thankfully, that scenario eventually led to a trilogy of movies developed from the premise, which just goes to show you that sometimes bad decisions lead to great consequences.

Nielsen is still Frank Drebin, and Drebin is still as insensitive and incompetent as ever. But he may be the best man for the job when he realises that there's a plot to assassinate the Queen while she's in his fair city. He's convinced that it's something to do with the smooth Vincent Ludwig (Ricardo Montalban) but he can't get any proof, meaning that nobody else will believe him. At least he manages to find solace in the arms of the beautiful Jane Spencer (Priscilla Presley), but will their relationship survive the situation. And will the Queen survive her visit?

ZAZ (David Zucker, Jim Abrahams, and Jerry Zucker) give comedy fans another modern classic here. They helped to craft the script, with help from Pat Proft, and it's almost as good as the mighty Airplane! Almost. The character of Drebin is hilariously oblivious throughout the movie, an American take on Inspector Clouseau, with an even richer seam of stupidity to be mined, and this helps to make every gag funnier. One-liners mix with hilarious visual jokes and set-pieces to provide non-stop laughter for fans of this particular type of comedy, and David Zucker also does a good job in the role of director. He doesn't need to do anything too special, but he makes room for each and every gag, even if it's something that viewers don't notice until a second or third viewing.

Nielsen is great in a role that he seemed born to play (even if he turned to comedy relatively late in his career), but he's given great support from George Kennedy, the lovely Miss Presley, Montalban, Nancy Marchand and O.J. Simpson back when he was best known for being an ex-sportsman. Everyone plays it admirably straight, no matter how ridiculous things get, and that's always been the brilliance of the best ZAZ comedies.

Hilarious and eminently rewatchable, no comedy collection should be without The Naked Gun.

9/10

http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-Naked-Gun-Trilogy-DVD/dp/B0029OMEY0/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1396140126&sr=8-1&keywords=naked+gun

Scary Movie 4 (2006)

It may not be quite as good as the preceding instalment, but Scary Movie 4 is a surprisingly good comedy, thanks mainly to the material being enjoyably childish as opposed to the irritating crudeness of the first two movies in the series.

This time around the series pokes fun at the Saw franchise, War Of The Worlds, The Grudge and The Village, among other targets. Anna Faris and Regina Hall both return as Cindy and Brenda, respectively, and Simon Rex, Charlie Sheen, Anthony Anderson and Kevin Hart briefly reprise their roles from the third movie, but this isn't overly concerned with maintaining any perfect continuity. It's just another opportunity to take characters that audiences seem to like and drop them into some outrageous situations.

The main new addition to the cast is Craig Bierko, playing Tom, the everyman hero based on the character played by Tom Cruise in War Of The Worlds (and, in some latter scenes, simply based on Tom Cruise in real life). When an alien invasion upsets everyone's day, Tom tries to protect his son and daughter while also assuring Cindy that they will find each other after they have both done what they have to do. Cindy, you see, is also busy trying to figure out why she keeps seeing the ghost of a small, Japanese boy and what exactly he may be trying to tell her.

The best thing to happen to the Scary Movie series is David Zucker taking over the directorial duties (well, that was the best thing to happen until the dire Scary Movie V) and this shows, once again, just how much fun he can wring out of potentially groan-inducing stuff. The script, by Craig Mazin, Pat Proft and Jim Abrahams, isn't exactly the sharpest or smartest, but Zucker puts together a fun cast and does well with budget. This isn't a movie that looks cheap, although it's worth noting that it doesn't make the mistake of looking too polished either.

The cast is a huge plus point, as it was in Scary Movie 3, with those involved including, but not limited to, Bill Pullman, Leslie Nielsen (reprising his role as the inept POTUS), Molly Shannon, Carmen Electra, Phil McGraw AKA Dr. Phil, Shaquille O'Neal, Michael Madsen, Chris Elliott (almost, but not quite, as annoying as he was in Scary Movie 2) and Cloris Leachman. Plus those already mentioned above.

If you've seen, and enjoyed, the other movies then there's no reason for you not to be pleased by this one. It's just a shame that the next film, released seven years later, was such a massive drop in quality. Viewers should stop at this one. In fact, I implore you to do so. For your own mental wellbeing.

6/10

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Scary-Movie-Collection-DVD/dp/B001ECPV6Q/ref=sr_1_11?ie=UTF8&qid=1377373211&sr=8-11&keywords=scary+movie