By Drew Dietsch
| Published 25 seconds ago
There’s a new Naked Gun movie heading our way, so it felt like the appropriate time to revisit the original trilogy of films. I’m sure lots of outlets are meticulously planning their Naked Gun retrospectives for the week of the new movie’s release, but I don’t care about “optimizing visibility” or some other reptilian boardroom lingo.
So I watched all the Naked Gun movies and came away with what I think is a certified Hot Take™: the third film, The Naked Gun 33 ⅓: The Final Insult, has the best actual story of all the movies, even though it is widely accepted as the worst movie in the franchise.
The Naked Gun Doesn’t Need A Story?
Now, I’m sure some of you are thinking that story is the least important part of spoof movies like The Naked Gun. That’s how we get to the abominations of Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer like Epic Movie, so that opinion is null and void.
Granted, the stories of the first two Naked Gun movies are effective in what they are trying to do: give a recognizable narrative framework to a series of gags and jokes. But, they aren’t really focused on delivering any kind of strong story, either narratively or thematically.
Which is why The Naked Gun 33 ⅓: The Final Insult stands out. It’s the first film in the series that actually has legitimately well-crafted character conflict, drama, and resolution.
The Plot of Naked Gun 33 ⅓: The Final Insult
After two movies of just being romantically attracted to each other, The Naked Gun 33 ⅓: The Final Insult finally has Frank Drebin and Jane Spencer married. But things aren’t perfect: Jane wants to have a baby and Frank seems to be unmotivated in more ways than one. Meanwhile, Frank is trying to stop a bombing and ends up going undercover in prison.
Here is where we actually get a solid story. The entire arc of The Naked Gun 33 ⅓: The Final Insult is about this turmoil between the two leads. Frank is worried about not being able to stop crime and that’s affecting his future parentage. Jane is worried that Frank’s work with Police Squad is too dangerous.
This leads to Jane going off on her own and eventually reconnecting with Frank by the climax. And climax is definitely the appropriate word.
The Naked Gun Gets Naked With Themes
Unlike the other Naked Gun movies, The Naked Gun 33 ⅓: The Final Insult manages to weave its character conflict into the theming of the story. For example, Frank believes he’s infiltrating a bank in order to get a lead on one of the film’s villains, but he ends up unknowingly entering a sperm bank.
This is a good gag all on its own, but it directly relates to the story being told with Frank, Jane, and their outlook on having children. The other Naked Gun movies don’t really aim for this kind of thematic continuity.
And by the end of The Naked Gun 33 ⅓: The Final Insult, Frank and Jane are working together to stop the baddies, and it’s their teamwork that leads to their reproductive issues being solved. It’s not complex character work at all, but compared to the other films, it’s practically Siddhartha.
I like all the Naked Gun movies to varying degrees, but The Naked Gun 33 ⅓: The Final Insult is actually engaging as a real story. A goofy, ridiculous, anarchic story but a real story nonetheless.
