Superman and The Fantastic Four have been guaranteed to be some of the most talked-about movies of the summer since they were announced, but one that has snuck its way into the conversation is next month’s The Naked Gun. The promos have been non-stop hilarious, and it looks like we can probably expect that through the movie’s runtime, which, according to the British Board of Film Classification (BBFC), is a swift 85 minutes, a perfect runtime for a movie like The Naked Gun.
Accounting for end credits, we’re really looking at 80 minutes. And knowing how the original Naked Gun trilogy used the opening credits for its own sequence of jokes, we have to count that as useful minutes towards comedy, provided this fourth installment keeps that tradition. So far, the style looks to do just that. In addition to that, the runtime is even in the exact neighborhood of the first three movies: both the original Naked Gun and The Smell of Fear were also 85 minutes, while The Final Insult hit 82.
So often movies overstay their welcome, which tends to hurt the comedy genre the most, especially those trying to balance a plot with laughs. But The Naked Gun – whose plot, let’s face it, doesn’t really matter when it comes down to it – is aiming to make the most of such an economical runtime. Think about how many gags were crammed into just the 2:30 trailer and we have no reason not to expect the movie to be rapid-fire hilarity, just the sort of movie that will make us come out of the theater and think, Yeah, that’s what we’ve been missing at the cinema.
Liam Neeson (hey, doesn’t that sort of sound like Leslie Nielsen?) stars as Lieutenant Frank Drebin, Jr., while Pamela Anderson – who was actually up for the role that Anna Nicole Smith got in The Final Insult – and Paul Walter Hauser lend support. Official writing credits go to Dan Gregor, Doug Mand and director Akiva Schaffer, after years of scripts floating around Hollywood.
Will you be checking out The Naked Gun when it opens on August 1st?
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