It's the second part that I find most consistently funny, and the one with the best third act. Instead of fizzling out at the end, "The Naked Gun 2 1/2: The Smell of Fear" concludes hilariously and quickly. [Full review in Spanish].

Full Review | Original Score: 4.5/5 | Jul 30, 2025

It's 85 minutes of pure, breathless pleasure. The eternally oblivious Drebin, played with growing relish by a reborn Leslie Nielsen, now seems firmly entrenched as one of the great comic creations of American movies.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/4 | Jul 23, 2025

It is merely stating the obvious to say that The Naked Gun 2½: The Smell of Fear is the most important movie of the year -- and also the most excellent.

Full Review | Original Score: 4.5/5 | Jul 23, 2025

How funny is it? I'm snickering too hard to answer. Not only does David Zucker's preposterously silly film stoop to new comic lows to get you to laugh, it even does the limbo. And cha-chas, too. With arms akimbo and legs splayed.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/4 | Jul 23, 2025

It's all fairly ridiculous, and fairly entertaining. There's no getting around the fact, however, that Zucker, Abrahams and Zucker have lost a bit of their collective touch.

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/4 | Jul 23, 2025

Naked Gun 2½ is high-flying low comedy, 90 minutes of sublime nonsense that only the devoutly humorless could hate.

Full Review | Jul 23, 2025

It's about half as funny as the original Naked Gun, but that nevertheless makes it one of the funniest movies of the year.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/4 | Jul 23, 2025

What they've created is an 85-minute episode of a half-hour TV series, and as much as you may want to love it, there aren't enough good laughs to justify the effort.

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/4 | Jul 23, 2025

If you want to giggle shamelessly for 90 minutes, this film's for you. But you may want to check your gray matter at the popcorn stand.

Full Review | Jul 23, 2025

Much of what follows is nearly on a par with the first Naked Gun... But some of the fun has leaked out this time.

Full Review | Jul 23, 2025

Now that Zucker has turned himself into an institution and this style of humor into a lifetime sinecure, the "Look, Ma, no hands" exuberance that made the original Airplane! so refreshing has totally gone by the boards.

Full Review | Jul 23, 2025

It delights in sight gags. It knows how to build jokes. It's full of slapstick that would have been wretched from almost any other director.

Full Review | Original Score: 8/10 | Jul 23, 2025

These characters first appeared in the short-lived but memorable Police Squad TV series and their comedic roots reach back to the original Airplane! No, The Naked Gun 2½ is not as funny as that 1980 comic tour de force, but nothing much is.

Full Review | Jul 23, 2025

Of course, it can't be just as fresh at this stage, but there's some comfort in revisiting the scene of the crime.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/4 | Jul 23, 2025

If Nielsen and Presley are remembered at all as performers 50 years from now, it's because they starred in The Naked Gun and The Naked Gun 2½: The Smell of Fear. The movies are that funny.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/5 | Jul 23, 2025

They stoop -- and recycle -- with the best of them. And the result is more refreshing than a blast of car exhaust on a steamy summer evening -- though perhaps not much more edifying.

Full Review | Jul 23, 2025

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 2½: The Smell of Money.

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/4 | Jul 23, 2025

The movie as a whole is pretty much the same deal [as its title]. Fewer than half of its jokes are stale, roughly half are OK in a borderline-tasteless way, and the rest are half jokes.

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/5 | Jul 23, 2025

Nielsen, it should be repeated, is flawless as a lawman whose confidence knows no bounds and has no basis.

Full Review | Jul 23, 2025

Naked Gun 2½ is a move where anything goes. Come to think of it, it's a movie where anything goes, comes back again, and then runs off into the ozone.

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/4 | Jul 23, 2025