I was skeptical when I heard there was an effort underway to remake The Naked Gun a few years ago. That skepticism slowly changed to optimism the more I heard about who was involved in making it. After the first trailer, I was ready and willing to believe it might be funny. And having now seen the whole movie, I am happy to say it is good and funny.

The plot, such as it is, centers around Sergeant Frank Drebin Jr. (Liam Neeson) – a Detective Lieutenant in the the LAPD’s unique Police Squad unit. A cowboy cop who followed in the footsteps of his unorthodox father, Frank is married to his job after losing his wife. Unfortunately, his beleaguered chief (CCH Pounder) is sick of his antics and reassigns Frank and his partner, Ed Hocken Jr. (Paul Walter Hauser) to investigating odd traffic accidents.

This leads to Frank stumbling across an apparent self-ending by a scientist connected to tech magnate Richard Cane (Danny Huston). It also leads to Frank encountering the victim’s sister, mystery novelist Beth Davenport (Pamela Anderson), who is more confident in her own ability to find the truth behind her brother’s death than Police Squad. Hijinks ensue, as Frank tries to solve the case while working around the many distractions Beth offers; first as an obstacle to his unofficial investigation and then as a new love interest.

The plot of The Naked Gun, however, is largely incidental to the actual movie. The focus here is upon comedy and the script by director Akiva Schaffer and Dan Gregor and Doug Mand manages the same weird balancing act as their earlier Chip ‘N Dale: Rescue Rangers movie. It presents itself as its own thing, while honoring the source material in a way that captures everything that made the original a beloved classic. There are a number of profoundly stupid jokes, but they are executed in incredibly smart ways. These range from sequences in which Liam Neeson fights his way through a horde of henchmen who each take a number to fight him one at a time, to Pamela Anderson improvising jazz scat with an incredibly confused band.

It is hard to say who acquits themselves better as a comedic performer here. As with Leslie Nielsen before him, Neeson plays the new Frank Drebin completely straight, with the trademark growl he employed in Taken, The Commuter and… well, most of his roles in the past 15 years. Anderson similarly plays the femme fatale with the same smolder she’s always had. However, the script gives her far more to do than look fetching and she delivers some of the film’s funniest lines with apparent ease. Their chemistry together is truly magical and hopefully this movie will be enough of a success that we will see a sequel.

Even if we do not, The Naked Gun is well worth checking out in the theater. I suspect it will be a bigger success on streaming, however, if only because then we can scroll back and catch all the gags hidden in the background. As it stands, it is one of those rare reboots that goes beyond honoring what came before to build something better.