Parents' Guide to Naked Gun 33 1/3: The Final Insult

This third Naked Gun movie is the first without David Zucker directing and some of the magic is clearly lost. Nielsen is as charming as ever as the hapless Frank Drebin, but Naked Gun 33 ⅓: The Final Insult itself feels broad and off brand. While it's nice to see Drebin again, the plot is often sidelined to shoehorn in once-topical gags. The film leans hard into pop culture references, many of which are lost in the decades that have since passed. Watching with teens, parents will not only need to decide whether to explain some of the more suggestive sex jokes, but also decide whether to explain or sometimes even research the irrelevant references to popular early 1990s movies and news stories. For the average quality of the gags, it's not worth the bother.

By no means a comedy classic, Naked Gun 33 ⅓: The Final Insult still manages to be amusing for most of its short runtime. But by the third act -- a showdown at an awards ceremony complete with fake inserts spoofing other movies -- it's truly run its course. It's almost enough to have wished Frank Drebin had stayed in retirement, but not quite.