The official teaser trailer for The Naked Gun reboot stars Liam Neeson and awkwardly but surely, addresses O.J. Simpson’s role in the 1988 original, The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad!
Paramount Pictures kicked off its CinemaCon presentation on Thursday by dropping the trailer to the cop-spoof franchise, with the studio confirming the comedy will roll out in theaters on Aug. 1.
Akiva Schaffer, of The Lonely Island fame, directed the film while Seth MacFarlane, known for Ted and Family Guy, produced it.
Neeson stars as Frank Drebin Jr., the son of the iconic goofball cop, played by Leslie Nielsen in the original trilogy. The trailer features the same nostalgic chaos and absurd comedy of the movie’s predecessors, with Neeson sporting polka dot briefs and a schoolgirl uniform in the teaser.
The 72-year-old brings Nielsen’s crime-fighting ways to a new generation of audiences as the trailer opens in a seemingly serious hostage situation at a bank that a S.W.A.T. team is handling.
A little girl causally, walks past the police barricades, nonchalantly sucking on a lollipop, and walks straight into the building filled with gunmen. She then rips her mask off to reveal Frank Drebin Jr., who introduces himself as a member of “police squad... the new version.”
Following a vicious fight scene involving the sharpened end of the lollipop, the comedic trailer concludes with Drebin on his knees, possibly at the police station, looking up to a framed portrait of his father, saying “love you.”
As the camera pans out, a line of men is seen on their knees looking up at framed pictures of their fathers. This includes a man sharing a similar sentiment to a portrait of George Kennedy’s original character, Captain Ed Hocken.
At the very end, we see the son of O.J. Simpson’s character, Detective Nordberg, who knowingly shrugs and looks away. Simpson’s appearances in the film series occurred before his criminal murder trial and controversial acquittal in the 1994 murders of his ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend, Ron Goldman.
The quick joke about the late controversial athlete serves as a knowing wink to the audience who may or may not remember the film series that gave him Hollywood success before he became far more famous for a very different reason.
