Question – what’s funny? Well it kinda depends where you’re from - for instance, in the US, it could get bruised having a fall, while in the UK, it can come in clean or filthy varieties.

Oh wait, we read the question wrong, we thought you asked what ‘fanny’ was? But thinking about it, funny also applies to all those things. Huzzah.

But funny doesn’t just struggle on the page (see above. This page idiot, not your head), it has had a siesta in film, due to the fact it doesn’t really do very well. And having suffered Happy Gilmore 2 recently, we’d concur.

Putting the ‘no’ ‘ta’ in nostalgia is this supposed sequel-cum(snigger)-reboot to the short-lived early eighties TV show Police Squad! and its more successful cinema outings with the three The Naked Gun features, all of which featured Leslie Nielsen as police lieutenant Frank Drebin.

Somewhat of a coffeeholic is Lieutenant Frank Drebin Jr. (Liam Neeson) in the LAPD. He happens to work for the Police Squad where his father used to work, but his attitude towards work gets him in trouble, as his boss deems his work ethic as being illegal, so he gets demoted.

He’s then given traffic duty, but his first case also happens to include a death, software engineer Simon Davenpart, that’s supposed to look like suicide, but Frank considers it suspicious. This hunch is confirmed when he meets Simon’s sister Beth (Pamela Anderson), who believes he was murdered.

This leads Frank to tech billionaire Richard Cane (Danny Huston), who just may well have something to do with Simon’s murder, especially with a P.L.O.T device in his possession seemingly behind it all.

The last two films Akiva Schaffer directed – 2016’s Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping and 2022’s Chip ‘n Dale: Rescue Rangers - are a strong indication as to why he was a bad choice for this project, mainly due to the fact they were both terribly unfunny. The one thing you can say is at least he’s consistent.

Its weakest aspect is the dialogue, seemingly written by a group who feel they succeeded putting the ‘i’ in team. Another tell is that all three of them were involved in the hit film Chip ‘n Dale: Rescue Rangers - sorry, a typo, that should read ‘shit’ film.

The only noise any of the so-called gags will muster are faint groans, and nothing more than that.

To be fair, it does better with its visual gags, with the laugh-o-meter hitting the underwhelming snigger mark.

And considering his recent tough guy persona, Neeson embraces the silliness of it all, even if the material he’s working with is as funny as a five-year-old child being informed they have terminal cancer.

It comes across as an opportunity missed, which no doubt made Nielsen shuffle in his urn a bit, with this particular Naked Gun shoots nothing but blanks.