Sequels of summer

 

Liam Neeson in action in “The Naked Gun. Paramount Pictures photo via IMDb.com

One afternoon in 1980 when I was the entertainment reporter at the Santa Cruz Sentinel, a man appeared at the front counter in the newsroom. He was in his 30s, and reminded me a little of the Fonz. He was, if I recall, wearing a bowling shirt. His name was Jim Abrahams.

Co-writing and directing with brothers David and Jerry Zucker, he had just made a movie, and was making a cold call at the newspaper trying to drum up publicity for it.

The movie was called “Airplane!”

As screen comedies go, it was destined to be a game changer.

The trio of filmmakers, soon to be known as ZAZ, had a simple formula for getting big laughs: Make everything a parody of itself. And the silliest thing of all is seriousness.

I read that Jim Abrahams died last year at age 80 of complications from leukemia.

The ZAZ brand of comedy died a long time before that.

Case in point: the Liam Neeson reboot of 1988's detective spoof “The Naked Gun.”

Granted, it's a stroke of genius casting the venerable Neeson in the mold of guys like Leslie Nielson, Peter Graves, Robert Stack and Lloyd Bridges, revealing that under their tough-guy screen personas they were actually a bunch of weenies. 

And adding Pamela Anderson, fresh from her Oscar nomination for “The Last Showgirl” as the femme fatale illustrates another ZAZ guiding principle: 

You're kidding … right?

But while Pam and Liam's offscreen chemistry may now be a Hollywood gossip item, on-screen it's a big fizzle. 

“Naked Gun's” plot has Neeson's Lt. Frank Drebin Jr., son of Leslie Nielson's original, on the trail of a Musklike high-tech entrepreneur, Richard Cane (Danny Huston, oily as ever). Cane has designs on saving the world, essentially by ridding it of people. 

Considering that the movie is set in Los Angeles, the premise makes a certain kind of sense.

Director Akiva Schaffer and his co-writers have mastered the ZAZ bag of tricks – the throwaway, often raunchy lines of dialogue; the rapid-fire, often gross and violent sight gags. The film's funniest sequence has Neeson on his own body cam while driving his police cruiser, succumbing to chili dog addiction then suffering the gastric aftermath. 

Neeson has the gravitas to mispronounce manslaughter as “man's laughter,” without cracking up. Playing it straight is his comic strength, punctuated by fart jokes.

But ZAZ laughs were easier to come by in the '80s when there were so many targets to puncture. Now, in a world well down the road of fake imagery and artificial consciousness, most of the new “Naked Gun” gags miss the mark. 

Satire doesn't work if there are no targets left in the real world to aim it at. 

Once reality becomes a parody of itself, comedy no longer has a job.

Laura Dern receiving the Rainmaker Award at the 2015 Maui Film Festival.  Matthew Thayer photo

“The Naked Gun” isn't the only film franchise past its prime.

I hadn't been in any hurry to see “Jurassic World: Rebirth,” but one stir-crazy, 105-in-the-shade Tucson afternoon, after swim season had ended and before a new school year began, it was the only title Vivie, 13, Niko, 11, and Gramps, 79, could agree on.

The title triggered a flashback for me, to a balmy Sunday evening in 2015, sitting on the Celestial Cinema stage in front of a few thousand people at the Maui Film Festival talking to Laura Dern about her brilliant career.

She had, of course, appeared in the original “Jurassic Park” and a 2001 sequel. Watching the clip reel, she said, was a little like a time capsule of her career, especially since her kids on Maui with her, were about the same age as she was when she began her acting career.

This umpteenth sequel one doesn't add much to the Steven Spielberg original that Laura starred in. Except this time the concern has shifted from dinos on the loose – and other unexpected consequences of playing God and putting too much faith in technology – to the evils of greedy capitalism on the loose. It comes in the form of nasty corporation trying to harvest dinosaur DNA to develop a vaccine to make its sleazebag CEO even more obscenely rich than he already is.

(Hmm, isn't that what the new “Naked Gun” is about, too? And when exactly did our whole world, get so Musked up …?)

Directed in workmanlike fashion by Garreth Edwards, “Rebirth” pays homage to the franchise in every facet, from cinematography to music. This time, the humans in the cast – led by Scarlett Johansson and Mahashara Ali – have their work cut out for them, tangling with creatures in the sea and in the air along with the big mamas on land.

It's nowhere as provocative as doctor-turned-novelist Michael Crichton's original “Jurassic” cautionary tale; but then again, the new film's action never wanes, either. Your mind doesn't wander, you don't nod off. 

Pretty much fun, was the consensus from Niko, 11, Viv, 13, and Gramps, 79.

Final verdict: You come for the dinosaurs. You stay for Scarlett Johansson.

Scarlett Johansson in pursuit of dino DNA in “Jurassic World: Rebirth.”  Jasin Boland/Universal Pictures – Universal Studios photo via IMDb.com