The Naked Gun 2½: The Smell of Fear

The plot exists to be disregarded, the characters are deliberately constructed of cardboard, the sight gags are idiotic, and the dialogue is dumb. Really dumb. So dumb you laugh twice, once because of how stupid it is, and the second time because you fell for it. Read full review

The enthusiastic Zucker, Zucker & Abrahams style of movie parody is too rarely seen to prompt much head-shaking about gags that don't work. The entire film is justified by those gags that do succeed, beginning with a pre-credit sequence that is possibly one of the most blithely hilarious six or seven minutes of film stock ever exposed to light. Read full review

Not quite as fresh as the first NAKED GUN, but what can you expect from a film subtitled "The Smell of Fear"? Read full review

Zucker, who collaborated with his brother Jerry and Jim Abrahams on such comedies as "Airplane!" and "Ruthless People," is working solo here. And aside from a flat patch midway through, he delivers as faithfully as Domino's pizza. In the limbo of comedy, few can go lower than Zucker without visibly straining. And the movie has a message: "Love is like the ozone layer; you never miss it until it's gone." Read full review

A bit of advice: Get to "The Naked Gun 2½" on time and plan to stay till they turn the lights back on. The opening and closing credits alone are almost worth the price of admission. Read full review

The Naked Gun 2 1/2 is at least two-and-a-half times less funny than its hilarious 1988 progenitor. But even if the laugh machine isn't operating at top efficiency, it still cranks out a few choice bits of irreverent lunacy. Read full review

it’s consistently funny and inventive. Read full review

The only thing about The Naked Gun that won't make you laugh is the film itself...To mix a metaphor in appropriate style, the filmmakers have really beaten a dead horse into the ground with this one. Read full review

A feeble sequel to The Naked Gun that's about one and a half rungs down from its predecessor and a good four or five down from Airplane! Read full review

What's missing is absolutely nothing. No joke is passed up or thrown away. There just might be a little too much. Read full review

My only complaint about Naked Gun 2 1/2 is that it doesn't give you enough time to finish laughing at one gag before the next one comes along, cracking you up all over again. Naked Gun 2 1/2 is high-flying low comedy, 90 minutes of sublime nonsense that only the devoutly humorless could hate. [28 June 1991, p.69]

But the bottom line is that The Naked Gun 2 1/2 is very funny about such plastic themes as a Barbara Bush look-alike taking a pratfall at a dinner table. [28 June 1991]

If it doesn't make you laugh, nothing will. [28 June 1991]

Actually, the rating fits. The movie isn't quite enough fun to qualify for the "average" category, yet not quite lame enough to deserve to be called "poor." [28 June 1991, p.6]

If anything is better about the sequel than the original, it's Leslie Nielsen, as deadpan as ever, but looking more relaxed than before, mugging and playing up his jokes with the subtlety and timing of an accomplished comedian -- which, at this point, I suppose he is. [28 June 1991, p.F1]

This is the swiftest, funniest, most lunatic comedy to date from the team that created "Top Secret," "The Naked Gun," "Ruthless People" and "Airplane!" [28 June 1991, p.23]

The first five minutes of this law-enforcement spoof (subtitled ''The Smell of Fear'') are hilarious, as police Lt. Frank Drebin (Leslie Nielsen) brings havoc to a White House dinner that features George and Barbara Bush. Although the movie slows down somewhat after that, there are enough giggles and bellylaughs along the way to make this summer comedy hard to resist. [28 June 1991, p.3F]

Like Top Secret and other less inspired efforts made by Zucker, brother Jerry Zucker and pal Jim Abrahams, The Naked Gun 2 is consistently amusing without being outright funny. [28 June 1991, p.6]

Though admittedly a minor delight, this is the only movie whose end credits identify the film's grip, then credit Martha Raye for Poli-grip, then define ''grip'' for millions who want to know just what a grip does. For such small favors, Gun 21/2 has the smell of box office. [28 June 1991, p.5D]

The film's vague recycling theme strikes me as a veiled admission of recycled ideas. Maybe Zucker should have been bold and called it The Naked Gun 2 1/2: The Smell of Money. [29 June 1991, p.E1]

If there were an ounce of pretension in this, it would be unbearable. But it is clear that nobody in the film takes it seriously, and that everyone is having fun, and you just can't help having fun with them. [28 June 1991]