The original movie was one of my favorites when I was a kid, and there was a point I could recite every line in the movie with the actors. When everything went down with OJ in 1995, my only thought was, "What about Nordberg?"
Liam Neeson is a perfect successor to the role of Frank Drebin. He has the same brutal seriousness in the face of the absurd situations his negligence wanders him into. He is believable as Frank Drebin's so, creating a new character without stepping on the old. There is enough material used from the original movies and TV show to honor the previous material without making the movie just a rehash of what's already been done.
I expected this movie to be a cash-in that wouldn't get more than a chuckle out of me. Instead, I was laughing so hard that in the scene where Frank is using an inhaler, I wished I had one of my own .
Speaking of the inhaler scene (no spoilers), this movie occasionally takes the absurdity to levels never seen in the previous movies, and I am there for it. The "sex" scene with Anderson and Neeson keeps unfolding and getting more bizarre, and it was hilarious.
That brings me to the only downside. There was nothing disappointing about this movie, but Liam Neeson has such great chemistry with both Pamela Anderson and Paul Walter Houser that I wish both of them were in the movie more. Bonus, we get another scene where Stingray beats up a bunch of children.
Don't leave the theater until the very end of the credits, or you will miss Weird Al's cameo. I said to myself as I was walking in that I would be really angry if Weird Al didn't have a cameo. There are multiple secret scenes, as well as jokes hidden in the text.