August Movies Part 1: The Naked Gun, Freakier Friday, The Life of Chuck

I'm behind on blogging this month so prepare for a deluge of random reviews. That's what summer's for!

The Naked Gun: Directed by Akiva Schaffer, who also co-wrote the screenplay with Dan Gregor and Doug Mand, this is an 85-minute spectacularly silly movie filled with sight gags, a billion puns, and the dumbest jokes imaginable. If you're having a tough day and want to see Liam Neeson disguised as a little schoolgirl, this is the movie for you. 

Neeson plays Lieutenant Frank Drebin Jr., the son of Frank Drebin (Leslie Nielsen) from the original Police Squad! TV show and subsequent Naked Gun movie franchise in the 80s. Like his father, Frank Jr. is a detective who doesn't play by the rules but manages to be surprisingly effective, much to his supervisor's chagrin. When he meets the sultry Beth Davenport, played by the delightful Pamela Anderson, he is pulled into a twisty murder case, trying to figure out who killed her brother and what devious criminal plans must be thwarted along the way. Fans of the original franchise will eat this movie up, whereas for someone like me, it was a perfectly apt diversion. My favorite joke? A shot of what is clear Crypto.com Arena, with a sign renaming it as Ponzi-scheme.com Arena. Readers, I chuckled.

Freakier Friday: Do I remember anything about the 2003 Freaky Friday movie? No. Was I still looking forward to seeing this sequel written by Jordan Weiss and directed by Nisha Ganatra? You bet!  Jamie Lee Curtis and Linsday Lohan are back as Tess and Anna, the mother and daughter who switched bodies in the original movie and got a literal lesson in how to walk in another person's shoes. Now, Tess is all grown up and made the choice to be a single mom, so she has a teenage daughter of her own, Harper (Julia Butters). Harper's archrival at school is a new girl named Lily (Sophia Hammons), and when the two girls get into a fight, their parents are brought in to speak to the principal. Well, turns out Lily's father, Eric (a very hot Manny Jacinto, with a hot British accent), is a young widower, and sparks immediately fly. Within six months, he and Anna are ready to get married, much to the deep objection of their daughters, who still hate each other. And so, of course, the universe decides another body swap is in order. 

Except this time, the two teenage girls swap bodies with the two older women, and it's all twice the fun. It's silly, it's predictable, you'll forget everything you saw the minute you leave the theater, but you'll have a good time while you're watching it. Jamie Lee Curtis is probably the most committed actor to the bit -- maybe that's why she's the one with an Oscar -- but it's clear everyone involved is having a ton of fun, and sometimes, that's all you want from your silly summer sequel.

The Life of Chuck: Written and directed by Mike Flanagan, based on a novella by Stephen King, I would be hard-pressed to tell you anything about what this movie is about. I started watching it on streaming, and then pulled up Candy Crush on my phone and promptly stopped paying attention. The movie starts as a story about a teacher named Marty (Chiwetel Ejiofor) and his ex-wife Felicia (Karen Gillan) who are living at a time when the world seems to be on the brink of ending. The news is always terrible, and the planet seems to be in trouble, and everyone is in a constant state of panic. And yet in this midst of this chaos, there are billboards for a man named Chuck (Tom Hiddleston) and we get the story of how this man lived his life and why life is a wondrous thing, full of beauty, and we must seize the moment every day. And there's a scene where he dances for a very long time with a stranger on the street.

I don't know why this movie stars all these British actors doing American accents, and it was just so vibey that I completely checked out. If there was a plot, I'm sorry, I did not notice it. I'm a huge Hiddleston fan, but this movie just felt too anodyne to compel me in any way. Upon reading the Wikipedia plot summary of this film, I can see that oh sure, there was some structure, but again, none of it felt like it had anything important to say. If you love this movie, please let me know if I'm wrong and this movie deserves a second viewing, but my first certainly left me with no impression whatsoever.