1358. The Naked Gun 2 1/2: The Smell Of Fear (1991)

Starring: Leslie Nielsen, Priscilla Presley, George Kennedy

Director: David Zucker

Running Time: 85 mins

The Naked Gun 2 1/2: The Smell Of Fear is an American film and the sequel to The Naked Gun. After discovering that Jane’s new boyfriend is actually the leader of an evil alliance of energy companies, Lt. Frank Drebin jumps into action to stop him.

As far as comedy sequels go, this is definitely one of the better ones. Managing to uphold the crazy atmosphere from the first film by providing the same amount of laughs, The Naked Gun 2 1/2 is a lot of fun to watch from start to finish. It’s not the greatest parody movie of all time, and it’s not the funniest comedy ever, but as a simple, silly piece of entertainment, it’s all you’ll ever need.

One of the biggest reasons that so many comedy sequels fail is because they just rehash the exact same thing that the first movie did. However, this movie rather unconventionally manages to make the exact same story and comedy work all over again. It doesn’t feel at all tired, and with a shorter running time, it means that you can watch effectively the same movie once again in no time at all, meaning that it’s still just as fun as last time.

As I said, this is by no means a brilliant comedy, as was the first Naked Gun movie, still not reaching the incredible heights of Airplane!, but the fact remains that its parodic and idiotic humour means that it knows exactly what it is, and never takes things too seriously. Sure, I would have liked a better story to up the intrigue, but when it comes to these parody movies, a decent plot is pretty irrelevant as long as the jokes are there.

So, if you’re a fan of countless movie references, film-noir parodies galore, and one of the greatest innuendo sequences of all time, then The Naked Gun 2 1/2 is for you. Leslie Nielsen impresses once more with a wonderfully entertaining performance, and with fantastically funny writing and a clear sense of fun, there’s little to dislike about this film, and that’s why it gets a 7.6 from me.