The Naked Gun 2½: The Smell of Fear

The Naked Gun 2½ (1991) is a parody built on energy policy. Lieutenant Frank Drebin goes to an energy summit. The president is to announce a plan for renewable energy prepared by a scientist, Dr Meinheimer. The coal, oil and nuclear industries do not want it, so they abduct him and install an identical double. For this series it has an unusually clear political target: in 1991 the film goes directly at the energy lobbies, and the plan the false Meinheimer announces is entirely fossil fuel and nuclear. The humour is again everywhere in the frame. Something happening in the background, a sign, a name, a second joke underneath a line. Drebin's seriousness never breaks; that is the whole method. A scene in a restaurant is among the best in the series and is built entirely on silent comedy logic. David Zucker directed, as he had the first. Leslie Nielsen, Priscilla Presley and George Kennedy return. O. J. Simpson plays Nordberg again and has an accident in every film in the series. It does not repeat the first film's surprise; it increases the joke density instead. It did better commercially than the first. Some jokes belong to their period and do not land now. The third film followed two years later. It runs 85 minutes. Good for: parody, absurd comedy, and anyone who liked the first. Less good for: the humour runs on repetition and some jokes have dated.