Notes on "Ne Zha 2"

"Ne Zha 2" is currently the highest grossing film of 2025.  It's a Chinese animated retelling of events from the life of the mythological figure Ne Zha.  It's also a sequel to the 2019 "Ne Zha" film, which did very well at the box office, but nowhere near what the sequel has achieved.  "Ne Zha 2" is a bona fide phenomenon, having grossed roughly $2 billion worldwide, and the Mandarin version even took $20 million in the U.S., though the English dub flopped.  My parents, who never talk about movies, brought this one up in conversation unprompted.  So, it brings me no joy to report that I've seen both "Ne Zha" films and I don't like either.

Based loosely on the classical novel "Investiture of the Gods," this version of Ne Zha (Lu Yanting) is a bratty child reincarnation of a demon, who is born to loving human parents (Lu Qi, Chen Hao).  He and his spirit brother/best friend of Ao Bing (Han Mo), the son of a Dragon God, Ao Guang (Li Nan), were killed in the first movie and are revived by Ne Zha's master Taiyi Zhenren (Zhang Jiaming) into new bodies.  However, Ao Bing's new form is damaged, so Ne Zha's goal is to become an immortal and join the sect of the Taoist, Wuliang (Wang Deshun), to help get Ao Bing a new body.  However, the immortal Shen Gongbao (Yang Wei), a group of troublemaking dragons, and a few other enemies are going to make that very tough for him.     

If this plot sounds rather complicated and unwieldy, that's because it is.  I soon gave up trying to keep any of the characters and their motivations straight, because it depends heavily on being familiar with certain tropes of Chinese literature and mythology that the movie assumes that you already know.  It helps to just think of Ne Zha and anybody he likes as the heroes, and everyone else is probably going to be a villain for various reasons that ultimately aren't too important.  The first half of the movie is mostly humorous and farcical, as you'd expect with your average animated kids' film.  Ne Zha and Ao Bing are stuck sharing a body, and Taiyi Zhenren tries to pass off Ne Zha as a model student and candidate for immortality to Wuliang.  There's a lot of tiresome toilet humor in both of the "Ne Zha" movies in a way that is very Chinese, but not any more appealing to me than when Western comedies resort to it.   

The second half of the movie is pure spectacle, with the various gods and demons going to battle against one another.  There are lots of beautiful, large-scale fighting sequences, interesting creature designs, and big dramatic confrontations rendered with plenty of lovely CGI animation.  The Chinese animation industry has been steadily improving over the past decade to the point where the level of quality is on par with most of the Western studios.  "Ne Zha 2" significantly improves on the first "Ne Zha" visually, and the spectacle is the best thing that it has going for it.  Unfortunately, it wasn't good enough to be worth watching simply for the lights and colors, and I found the story too incoherent to be invested in.  There are so many fake out deaths and resurrections, it never felt like there were any meaningful stakes to the battles.  And did I mention the film runs 143 eye-watering minutes?

The character of Ne Zha is appealing and fun, and I understand why he's popular.  He's a naughty little stinker of a kid, but with superpowers and a heroic destiny.  I expect that the audience that will have the best time with him will likewise be children, who may not be so bothered by the movie's byzantine worldbuilding and overly busy plotting.  However, for me "Ne Zha 2" has very little that I find appealing, and too much that I found myself patiently tolerating. That's not uncommon for me with certain kids' films, but I was hoping for better from a movie with this much hype and fuss around it.  Then again, I've found very few of the big box office winners out of China and Japan to my taste, so I guess this is just par for the course.  

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My Most Anticipated Series of 2026

It's a challenge to write these lists so far in advance - four of the titles from last year's posts were delayed to 2026, and "Anansi Boys" from the 2024 list is still in limbo, but that was never the point of these posts.  The point is to start off the year looking forward, trying to get a sense of what the streaming landscape looks like, and making some predictions about what I think the most interesting new shows are.  The titles below may not make it to your screens in the calendar year 2026, but they've already generated enough buzz to be on my radar, so keep an eye out for them.

The Vampire Lestat (AMC+) - This is season three of "Interview With the Vampire," obviously, but if the show wants to do some rebranding, as we pivot to more Lestat-centric stories, I'm going to take advantage.  The trailer is glorious.  I can't wait.

Cape Fear (Apple TV+) - The thriller series will star Javier Bardem, Patrick Wilson and Amy Adams.  Bardem playing a psychopath again is going to be an event, and I'm looking forward to him putting a different spin on Max Cady.  What has me a little worried is this material being stretched to fill ten episodes, which means expanding the story significantly.

Neuromancer (Apple TV+) - Graham Roland, the creator of "Jack Ryan" and "Dark Winds" is the guy who is finally getting an adaptation of "Neuromancer" made.  Apple TV+ science-fiction offerings have been pretty solid to date, so I'm hopeful that they'll do right by William Gibson and the cyberpunk community.  Callum Turner and Briana Middleton will star as Case and Molly.  

The Wanted Man (Apple TV+) - This one is from George Kay, the creator of "Hijack" and "Lupin."  The plot looks pretty typical - a crime boss escapes from prison to seek revenge and save his criminal empire.  However, the protagonist is being played by Hugh Laurie, which is enough to get me onboard.  Laurie's kept busy, but he hasn't had too many lead roles lately.     

Lanterns (HBO) - Kyle Chandler and Justin Pierre will star in this new DC universe limited series as a pair of superpowered Green Lanterns, but what really has me excited is the involvement of co-creator Damon Lindelof, whose track record since "Lost" has been pretty solid.  The actual showrunner is Chris Mundy, best known for "Ozark," who is no slouch either.

Vision Quest (Disney+) - Terry Matalas is showrunning the new Vision series, which means Todd Stashwick is in the cast!  And James Spader is back as Ultron!  Several other MCU AI, including EDITH and FRIDAY will also be making appearances, but there's no sign of anyone from the "Agatha" cast.  I'm holding out hope that these shows have more connections.

The Altruists (Netflix) - From Graham Moore and James Ponsoldt comes a dramatization of the rise and fall of the FTX cryptocurrency exchange.  Julia Garner and Anthony Boyle will star as Catherine Ellison and Sam Bankman-Fried respectively.  I've been wary of the recent spate of Silicon Valley miniseries, but the talent involved has me cautiously intrigued here. 

Ride or Die (Amazon Prime) - So, this is an assassin action-adventure series starring Hannah Waddingham and Octavia Spencer, set mostly in a mall?  This was apparently the subject of a bidding war when it was first announced, and Peyton Reed is directing the pilot.  Details are still pretty scarce, but Bill Nighy is playing the villain, which is usually a good sign. 

The Boys From Brazil (Netflix) - Jeremy Strong will star in a Nazi hunting limited series from Peter Morgan of "The Crown."  It's based on the Ira Levin novel, which was previously adapted as a Franklin Schaffner film starring Gregory Peck.  This might get pushed back due to Strong also starring in the delayed "9/12" first responder action series for Paramount+. 

New Sunnydale (Hulu) - Finally, the new "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" legasequel has a finished pilot, directed by Chloe Zhao, and starring Ryan Kiera Amstrong as the newest Sunnydale slayer.  There's no guarantee that this is going to series, but if it does it'll be soon, I'm rooting for it.  I'd love to know what the Scooby gang has been up to lately.  

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My Least Anticipated Films of 2026

It's the beginning of the year, and as with every movie year we start off with a slate full of titles that hold a lot of promise.  And then there are those titles that experience tells us we should probably avoid.

Please keep in mind that  I sincerely hope that I'm wrong about all of the movies mentioned in this post.  I want them to all turn out to be decent cinema. But if past years are any indication, it's likely this will be the last time you see discussion of any of these titles on this blog.

Let's start with the horror franchises.  "SOULM8TE" is a spinoff of "M3GAN" that was pulled from the January schedule and is currently in limbo, but we'll probably see it pop up on a streamer eventually."  We're also getting a "Return to Silent Hill" later in the month, and a "Scream 7" in February, Kevin Williamson's first directing job in well over twenty years.  After the dramatic exits of Melissa Barrera and Jenna Ortega from this franchise, this installment was rejiggered to focus on the older characters, which means Courtney Cox and Neve Campbell are back again.  And I guess it was inevitable, but "Scary Movie 6" is on its way in June, with all the Wayanses, Anna Faris, and Regina Hall too.

2026 will have several potential landmines among the upcoming kids' movies.  The new attempt at "The Cat in the Hat" has already released a trailer and it looks insufferable.  And it's supposed to launch a new Seuss universe for Warner Bros. Pictures Animation, which I'm still trying to get my head around.  "Minions 3" is sure to make plenty of money, but this franchise is getting very long in the tooth.  This particular installment had its release date bumped up from 2027 to 2026, which may be a good sign though.  "The Angry Birds Movie 3," now featuring Mr. Beast in its cast, is also currently on the slate for December, but that one might get bumped to 2027.  

After the success of "It Ends With Us," adaptations of Colleen Hoover novels are a hot commodity.  "Reminders of Him" with Maika Monroe will arrive in February, and "Verity" with Dakota Johnson and Anne Hathaway is due in October.  I want to make it very clear that I'm not expecting either of these movies to be bad.  Director Michael Showalter, who is helming "Verity," could very well be great at psychodramas, even though he's never made one before.  We don't know yet.  However, after reading the synopses of both Hoover novels, I predict that these are inevitably going to result in a pair of very contrived movies that I have no interest in watching.  

On the faith-based film front, the Erwin brothers are behind some really unfortunate movies.  This year, they're making a sequel to one of their biggest successes, 2018's "I Can Only Imagine."  The trouble is that "I Can Only Imagine" is a musician biopic, and musician biopics usually don't lend well to sequels.  I guess you could point to "Jolson Sings Again," the smash hit of 1946, as an exception.  They also have a star-studded George Washington biopic titled "Young Washington." Angel Studios is also distributing Andy Serkis's new animated "Animal Farm," which has gotten nothing but abysmal reactions due to its changes to the story and use of goofy humor.   

I also want to talk about Antoine Fuqua's Michael Jackson biopic "Michael," which has had one of the most accursed productions in recent memory.  First, it was held up by the SAG/AFTRA strikes.  Then the third act had to be completely redone, because legal agreements meant that the movie couldn't depict the victim of Jackson's 1993 sexual abuse allegations.  There have been delays, reshoots, and the possibility of the film being released in two parts.  It's currently scheduled to come out in April, but at this point anything could happen.      

While we're on the subject of two part films, I think "Horizon: An American Saga - Chapter 2" is supposed to come out this year.  It premiered at the Venice Film Festival in 2024, and Kevin Costner says that "Chapter 3" and "Chapter 4" are in production right now, though a recent THR article suggests otherwise.  I guess we'll have to wait and see.  

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The Best Classic Films I Watched in 2025

In an effort to highlight older films, here are the best films I watched this year that were not released in 2025 or 2024.  Entries are unranked and listed below by release date.  I'm starting with the oldest ones this time around. 

Go West (1925) - This is the Buster Keaton feature, not the '40s Marx Brothers movie of the same name.  A western romp, "Go West" features herds of stampeding cattle, lots of cowboy antics, and Buster making friends with cinema's most adorable cow, Brown Eyes.  This isn't one of the better known Keaton features, but it's got charm to spare and I'm surprised I had overlooked it for this long.  Ironically, it's one of the only Buster Keaton films where he's the sole writer and director.

The Scarlet Letter (1926) - I have no love for the source material, and I still have some trouble with the silents, but I found Victor Sjostrom's version of "The Scarlet Letter" powerful and entertaining.  A lot of the credit should go to the leading lady, Lilian Gish, who helped to get the film made despite its controversial subject matter, and recruited Sjostrom to direct.  She also helps to humanize Hester Prynne, who comes across as vulnerable and sympathetic, instead of a cipher from a morality lesson.   

Way Out West (1937) - Another comedic western, this time featuring Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy getting themselves mixed up in an inheritance dispute in a frontier town.  The gags and jokes are the main event, of course.  However, many of the Laurel and Hardy films were also musicals, and "Way Out West" is best known as the feature with the dapper duo's famous saloon soft-shoe routine - the one that was lovingly recreated at the climax of their "Stan & Ollie" biopic many decades later.  

Martha (1974) - This is the film that Rainer Werner Fassbinder made immediately before "Fear Eats the Soul," and is likewise heavily influenced by the work of Douglas Sirk.  It's a paranoid thriller about the downfall of a spinster, who comes under the influence of a sinister, controlling man.  Though originally made for German television, it was a bigger budget production than usual for Fassbinder, and features terrific performances from Margit Carstensen and Karlheinz Bohm in the lead roles.  

Rosie the Riveter (1980) - Of all the documentaries I watched this year for various projects, this is the one that I consider the most important, the one that I'd have everyone see if I could.  It gets across two very important points.  First, gender is a construct, and gender roles have and will continue to change as needed.  Second, the American government's biggest target of propaganda has always been Americans, and it's breathtaking to see how drastically the messaging can switch on a dime when they want it to.  

That's Entertainment! III (1994) - Easily the best of the "That's Entertainment!" films.  It not only compiles more clips from classic MGM musicals, but this time focuses more on the craft and the historical context, inviting a more diverse group of presenters to participate.  MGM also raided its vault for deleted musical numbers, alternate takes, behind the scenes footage, and other priceless ephemera that were unseen until the release of this film.  Classic Hollywood fans shouldn't pass this one up.  

How Stella Got Her Groove Back (1998) - I watched a lot of Angela Bassett movies this year.  And when you're my age, "Stella" is an inevitable watch.  It is the best version of this story I've ever seen onscreen, long before the term "cougar" became popular.  It's all thanks to Angela Bassett delivering every second she's onscreen, backed up by an all-star cast.  I also watched the other great Terry McMillan adaptation, "Waiting to Exhale," but "Stella" is more memorable, a fantasy that doesn't forget real world concerns.

Analyze This (1999) - This got its own post earlier in the year, and I continue to marvel at how well Robert DeNiro's menace is deployed in the service of a comedy.  An entirely new phase of his career came about thanks to the success of "Analyze This," which we're still seeing the benefits of to this day.  This was also the last Billy Crystal vehicle that really worked, and the last Harold Raimis directed movie that really hit.  And it's always good to see Lisa Kudrow killing it, to remind us that there are no small parts. 

You Can Count on Me (2000) - Kenneth Lonergan's first major film is a fantastic character piece about a long estranged brother and sister and how they try to fit in each other's lives as adults.  Laura Linney and Mark Ruffalo give such layered, complex performances, as very different siblings who are both imperfect and tragic in their own ways.  And as we get to know the two of them, we get to know their rural  New York community and the tangle of relationships that they have with a collection of other people.

Taxi to the Dark Side (2007) - Last but not least, the most timely film on this list is Alex Gibney's examination of the death of an Afghan taxi driver after his extrajudicial incarceration at Bagram by American soldiers.  With plenty of context about similar practices at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay, Gibney shows us exactly how we got here.  What struck me the most was not only the heinous nature of the programs, but the almost total lack of accountability when these abuses were finally brought to light.   

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Recalibrating My Hype Meter

Marketing media has always been all about building movies and television shows into events, but I've reached the age where I'm anticipating fewer and fewer titles than I used to.  I'll happily watch whatever everyone else is talking about, but there are very few projects anymore that I'll track obsessively months and years in advance the way that I did in the past.  2025, like 2019, saw the releases of several long-awaited pieces of media that I'd been looking forward to for a while, like the last season of "Stranger Things," and I'm realizing that there's not much left in 2026 and beyond that I'm really anticipating.

Sure, I'm curious about "Project Hail Mary" and "Dune: Part 3," and even the new "Mandalorian" and "Avengers" films, but the excitement that I always associated with being a film fan has largely ebbed.  I recently sat down and wrote up a list of everything coming up that I was actively looking forward to, and it was barely a dozen titles.  I know a lot of this is due to me being in my forties and no longer in the audience that the majority of media is aimed at - especially in the case of genre media.  However, there are a couple of contributing factors and specific nuances that I want to take some time to talk about.  I've written similar posts a few times before, but this time I want to get a little more analytical.  

A big issue is the nostalgia wave moving on to Millennial and early Gen Z properties.  I count myself as a late GenXer, and all those remakes and legasequels of 80s and 90s media are becoming scarce.  "Spaceballs" is probably the last big one on the horizon, which does sound like a lot of fun.  Most of the targets for cultural strip mining are now 2000s media like "Freaky Friday," "The Devil Wears Prada," and our recent billion dollar hit, "Lilo & Stitch."  The new "X-men" movies should be right on time.  I have fond memories of a lot of these, but not the kind of emotional connection I have with the big hits of my childhood.  There are a few new attempts being mounted to reboot older kids' properties like "Masters of the Universe" and "The Chronicles of Narnia," but in most cases I've already seen multiple versions come and go, so it doesn't feel like anything special.

I used to have a significant list of projects stuck in development hell that I was waiting for - "Ender's Game," "The Sandman," and "Watchmen" among them.  I think watching a lot of these Holy Grail projects actually get made, and dealing with the inevitable tempering of expectations, influenced me to stop pinning my hopes on them prematurely.  Would I love to see a new version of "The Last Unicorn" or big budget adaptations of "Akira" or "Evangelion" finally hit the big screen?  Sure.  However, I no longer automatically assume that any of these would be an improvement on the media that already exist for these titles.  The big exception, of course, is "The Dark Tower," because there's no way that any new adaptation of that one wouldn't be an improvement on the terrible 2017 film.      

My tastes and attentions have gradually shifted away from IPs and genres and towards specific actors and directors.  I know, for instance, that I will generally enjoy a Christopher Nolan or Greta Gerwig film, but this is not a certainty.  After "Doctor Strange" I've become much more wary of films that look great on paper.  I have never seen a project waste such a fantastic cast on such underwhelming material.  There have also been far too many director and actor passion projects that have turned out badly.  It's honestly a nice surprise when a "Sinners" or a "Life of Chuck" turns out well.  Or even an "Alien: Romulus."    

This doesn't mean that I'm no longer looking forward to new media, or that I'm not going to write up my yearly lists of anticipated films and series.  However, it's an unavoidable fact that many projects fail to meet expectations, and in the case of the ones from development hell there's often a reason why it took so long for something to reach our screens.  I'm going to miss the fun of the hype, but I guess I've been around the block enough times that this aspect of my fandom experience is probably over for good.  The movies aren't any better or worse in the end, though, and this way I avoid a lot of disappointment.    

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New Seasons of Old Cartoons

2025 saw the return of "King of the Hill" on Hulu, and "South Park" taking off the gloves and making headlines.  We also got a pretty decent new season of "Futurama" that seems to have totally flown under the radar.  I thought I'd take a post to talk about all three.

"King of the Hill" returns after a sixteen year break, and there have been some major changes.  The characters have all aged in real time, so Hank (Mike Judge) and Peggy (Kathy Najimy) are now retirees and Bobby (Pamela Adlon) is twenty-one and running a Japanese-German fusion restaurant.  On top of that, the Hills have been living in Saudi Arabia for over a decade for Hank's work, and are just now returning to a vastly changed Arlen, Texas.  This means that the dynamics of the show have changed, with the generational divide now as prominent as the cultural one.  And yes, the cultural divide is still in play.  There's a whole episode where Hank has an existential crisis over the fact that he enjoys soccer.      

The show doesn't look quite the same - the switch to digital has taken some of the hand-drawn imperfections out of the animation, similar to "The Simpsons."  It also doesn't sound quite the same, with several recasts and some of the actors having noticeably aged.   Johnny Hardwick passed away after voicing Dale for some of the episodes, so Toby Huss fills in for the rest.  However, the important parts are still there.  World-weary Hank has to deal with plenty of new aggravations about modern life while adjusting to retirement.  Peggy continues to mangle foreign languages and struggles with keeping her inner busybody in check.  Bobby is doing great, but still has to deal with his childhood bully and is still nursing a crush on Connie (Lauren Tom), who is now a university student.  

"South Park" has been going strong for over twenty years now, despite taking a few years off here and there.  Not much has changed since the late 2000s, when I was last regularly watching, as far as I can tell.  However, after a 2024 that only offered the "End of Obesity" special, we got a full season in 2025, and Trey Parker and Matt Stone are not pulling their punches.  After years of only indirect criticisms and fairly mild lampooning of Donald Trump, the season premiere came out swinging.  There was no mistaking that MAGA and the Trump administration were the primary targets, with Trump himself in a relationship with Satan, and JD Vance rejiggered into Tattoo from "Fantasy Island."  There is also gratuitous nudity, deepfaking, and a talking penis.  Subsequent episodes tackle ICE, Charlie Kirk, Labubus, Brendan Carr, Peter Thiel, and Benjamin Netanyahu.

I appreciate that Trey Parker and Matt Stone are fighting the good fight while much of the news media feels like it's in retreat, but aside from the shock value I didn't get much out of these episodes.  "South Park" and its edgelord tactics were never really to my tastes, and I was only ever a regular viewer for a few seasons when I was pretty much watching Comedy Central 24/7.  I watched this newest batch of episodes to keep up with the discourse, and "South Park" is pretty much the same as it always was, just with updated targets.  The method of mockery hasn't changed, and the characters haven't evolved at all.  The episodes with Satan in a relationship with Trump recycle some of the same jokes from the episodes with Satan and Saddam Hussein.  And I get that that's the point, but it still feels old hat.   

Finally, I think it's worth noting that "Futurama" just wrapped up its second season on Hulu, and proved that it's still the nerdiest cartoon currently running.  Sure, "Rick and Morty" may have taken the animated science-fiction sitcom to new and disturbing places, but "Futurama" devoted an entire episode, "The Numberland Gap," to incredibly geeky math jokes.  It even brought Georg Cantor along for the ride.  There have been a few minor developments in the "Futurama" status quo - Amy (Lauren Tom) and Kif (Maurice LaMarche) are now raising three kids, and Fry (Billy West) and Leela (Katey Sagal)  are in a long term relationship, but otherwise the Planet Express gang seems to be doing well.  There were some very mediocre seasons over the years, since "Futurama" has been bouncing between platforms and revived multiple times, but this year was one of the good ones.  

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And Now, "The Naked Gun"

My relationship with the original Abrams/Zucker Brothers "Naked Gun" movies has never been great.  I saw bits and pieces of them many times over the years, but mostly at an age where I didn't get most of the jokes.  I always thought of them as very raunchy movies for adults, probably because they were the only comedies I saw broadcast on television that got away with a certain level of sexual innuendo.  What I found more interesting was that these movies, along with the Mel Brooks comedies and other parody films, all took place in this absurd cartoon universe where the rules of reality didn't apply.  You could have wild, elaborate sight gags where luggage came alive, a squad car could drive through anything, and you combed the desert with literal combs.  

This kind of humor has fallen out of favor as the parody film has lost popularity.  I think the "Austin Powers" movies were the last to really do this joke-a-minute, off the wall style well.  So it was a nice surprise to see so many of the old gags and goofs and cartoon props used extensively in the new "The Naked Gun," where Liam Neeson plays Frank Drebin Jr., the son of Leslie Nielsen's character from the original films.  A giant claw machine claw is used to pluck a crashed car out of a river.  There's a running gag where officers in the police station keep being handed larger and larger cups of coffee.  Drebin makes his first appearance in disguise as a pint-sized schoolgirl, and then proceeds to foil a bank robbery by beating up all the criminals while wearing the schoolgirl outfit.  All the humor is extremely silly, with a lot of puns, a lot of ridiculous sight gags, and a lot of Liam Neeson keeping a stony expression while doing wacky things.

I went back and watched a few of the other Abrams/Zucker Brothers films, including the original "The Naked Gun," and was pleasantly surprised to find that they were all like that.  Some of the jokes have aged badly, but on the whole these older parody films are much more lighthearted and cartoonish than I remember.  The humor is all very juvenile, "MAD Magazine" level naughtiness, but very earnestly so.  The reboot manages to capture and update that sensibility just about right.  You've got the return of the "this looks like people having sex, but it's something totally innocent" sequence.  You've got the extremely stupid acronyms.  Weird Al and Priscilla Presley have cameos.  There's an extended bit with a demonically possessed snowman.  At the same time, you can tell this is the work of Akiva Schaffer and the Lonely Island comedy group, with Drebin occasionally finding a moment to rant about Tivo settings and "Buffy the Vampire Slayer."      

However, I think what really makes it all work is the cast.  I wasn't initially onboard with Liam Neeson as the new Frank Drebin, even after his work in "The Lego Movie."  The role was too incongruous with my image of Neeson as a serious actor who made a lot of brainless action movies.  However, it turns out his comic timing is great, he's willing to go to embarrassing lengths for a laugh, and his serious actor persona is part of the joke.    After all, Leslie Nielsen was a serious actor too, before "Airplane!"  Even better than Neeson is the participation of Pamela Anderson, who finds exactly the right tone and commits beautifully to the comedic madness.  She and Neeson make a very cute couple.  The supporting cast is also filled with stalwart performers who can keep a straight face - Paul Walter Hauser, Danny Houston, and CCH Pounder.   

Finally, is the movie funny?  Well, that's a difficult question for a reviewer with a notoriously terrible sense of humor.  I didn't laugh much at the new "Naked Gun," but I found it extremely entertaining and I left my screening in a good mood.  I don't think this kind of movie will ever be for me, but I like it better than the manchild antics of the Frat Pack, or the tiresome tedium of most romantic comedy/action/spy/whatever movies that I'm supposed to be the target audience for.  I don't know that I need a sequel, but maybe they could spin off the demonically possessed snowman?  

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