Fluke_Skywalker

Like its predecessor, this new incarnation of 'The Naked Gun' never takes its foot off of the gas, firing away with a seemingly bottomless clip of jokes and gags. The formula can get tiresome after awhile, but the gang from Police Squad thankfully don't overstay their welcome.

Liam Neeson steps into the well worn shoes of the late, great Leslie Nielsen, and while it's nearly impossible to match or surpass the latter, Neeson does an admirable job. To his credit, he doesn't try to mimic Nielsen and the movie is all the better for it.

The surrounding cast is solid, if not exactly spectacular. The real standout is actually Pamela Anderson. Don't get me wrong, she's not exactly Meryl Streep, but she really goes all in and she and Neeson have good chemistry together.

The jokes that work here are laugh out loud funny, and even the clunkers aren't so bad that you'll be groaning. If nothing else, the movie aims to please, and that's something that's been missing in movies for a long time now.

The success of 2000's Oscar winning 'Gladiator' should have ushered in a new era of large scale "Sword and sandal" films. Instead we got a few offerings and then comic book movies became all the rage and the historical epic got lost in the mists of time. One of the ones that did get made before heroes in tights took over was 2004's criminally underrated 'Troy'.

This is the kind of movie that needs a big stage, and boy does 'Troy' have a doozie. The production values here are just off the scale. And the special f/x! How in the world does a movie made twenty years ago look five times better than movies released this year?

The cast is uniformly excellent, with even the side roles filled by seasoned and accomplished actors who don't appear as if they're just there for check.

It even has a terrific James Horner score (did he have any other kind), pitch perfect for the operatic tone and huge stakes.

This was a hit when it was released, but it seems to have become somewhat forgotten. That's a shame, as it really is a very, very good movie.

I've never read the novel by Alexandre Dumas that this movie is based on, but given that the audiobook version of the former has a runtime north of fifty hours and the latter clocks in at just a smidge over two, I'm guessing that we're getting a severely truncated version here. It doesn't show in terms of the story feeling chopped up or incomplete, but it does really montage its way through the second act so that we can get to the revengn'. Oh well, no matter. It all works perfectly fine regardless.

There are pinpricks all over the hull of this ship, but they don't add up to a large enough hole to sink it. For instance, aside from Guy Pearce and Richard Harris, the film is woefully miscast. But the likes of Caviezel and Guzman make up for it with their genuine, energetic efforts. That goes a long way with me. It's like when you go to a fast food place and their workers are polite. Does it make the fries fresh or the shake machine work? No, but it does make the experience more pleasant.

This is far from a classic, but it seems like it's kinda been forgotten over the years, and that's a shame. It's old fashioned in the best sense of the word, and a nice enough respite from the CGI inflated garbage Hollywood mistakes for being "entertainment" these days.