The Naked Gun 2½

Dom Robinson reviews

The Naked Gun 2½
The Smell of Fear Distributed by

Paramount

• Cert:
• Cat.no: PHE 8077
• Running time: 82 minutes
• Year: 1991
• Pressing: 2001
• Region(s): 2, PAL
• Chapters: 15 plus extras
• Sound: Dolby Digital 5.1
• Languages: English, German
• Subtitles: 13 languages available
• Widescreen: 1.78:1
• 16:9-Enhanced: Yes
• Macrovision: Yes
• Disc Format: DVD 9
• Price: £19.99
• Extras: 2 Trailers, Audio Commentary
  

  ---

  Director:

  David Zucker

  (Airplane!, BASEketball, For Goodness Sake, The Guest, Naked Gun 1 & 2, Ruthless People, Top Secret)

Producer:

Robert K. Weiss

Screenplay:

David Zucker and Pat Proft

Music:

Ira Newborn

Cast:

Lt. Frank Drebin: Leslie Nielsen
Jane Spencer: Priscilla Presley
Capt. Ed Hocken: George Kennedy
Quentin Hapsburg: Robert Goulet
Nordberg: O.J. Simpson
Dr. Mainheimer: Richard Griffiths

---

“Frank Drebin is back. Just accept it.”, read the billing on the poster. Is it really ten years since I saw that printed up? Sadly, yes.

What isn’t unfortunate though is that it’s a bit more funny than the first film, but while I laughed out loud first time round, I happened to see it on the big screen a second time shortly afterwards as Universal double-billed it with free screenings of the excellent Soapdish and it wasn’t so good as a repeat.

This time round the villain is Quentin Hapsburg (Robert Goulet) and he’s out to wreck the environment, but the important bit is what the film spoofs and it points fun at Ghost‘s clay-making scene and the time Zsa Zsa Gabor was pulled over by the police while out and about.

Upon its cinema release it received a 12-rating, but at the time there were no 12-certs allowed on home video releases so it was upped to a 15. There’s nothing more than an f-word from Zsa Zsa and some risque comedy.

---

Indoor scenes are still grainy. Who’s in charge of the mastering here? The print’s presented in an anamorphic 1.85:1 widescreen ratio again. The average bitrate is a high 7.52Mb/s, briefly peaking over 9Mb/s.

The remastered Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack isn’t really used to a great achievement here with sound effects not coming out much different to the standard surround sound version and it’s in English only, but this time the Germans get a Dolby Surround soundtrack.

Extras are thin on the ground with this series. Two trailers are included here in 16:9 anamorphic widescreen – one lasting two minutes and the other 90 seconds, plus a feature-length Audio Commentary from director David Zucker, producer Robert Weiss and it’s hosted by Peter Tilden.

Chapters have been reduced to 15, but with with subtitles still in 13 languages: English (and hard of hearing), Arabic, Czech, Danish, Dutch, Finnish, German, Hungarian, Icelandic, Norwegian, Polish, Swedish and Turkish. The menus are silent and static.

FILM CONTENT
PICTURE QUALITY
SOUND QUALITY
EXTRAS


OVERALL Review copyright © Dominic Robinson, 2001.