Comic misfire: ‘Naked Gun’ remake with Liam Neeson low on high-caliber comedy

“The Naked Gun” — 2 stars

Akiva Schaffer, director of the misfiring remake of the riotous 1988 farce “The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad!,” should have paid attention to how Chicago’s own Robert Zemeckis averted a huge casting error on the set of “Back to the Future.”

When original star Eric Stoltz’s performance proved to be deadpan serious and devoid of comic timing, Zemeckis replaced him with “Family Ties” TV sitcom star Michael J. Fox, who nailed the tongue-in-cheek nuances of Marty McFly.

So why didn’t Schaffer replace Liam Neeson in “The Naked Gun” the moment his hit-and-miss-and-miss-and-miss movie revealed that the Irish actor’s particular set of skills didn’t include a command of comic timing or any sense of playful, self-aware mirth?

As Police Squad detective Frank Drebin Jr. — son of Leslie Nielsen’s original, hilariously bumbling “Naked Gun” cop — Neeson spits out his dialogue — often in film-noiry voice-over narrations — with fiercely monotone seriousness in a collection of skewered Hollywood clichés, wince-worthy puns and occasional jokes that hit their comic Hogan’s Alley targets.

Neeson’s Drebin is a hickory nut that has fallen far from the family tree. Unlike his late father — a well-meaning doofus with a good heart and a low IQ — Junior becomes a send-up of the actor’s late-career switch to vigilante action films, starting with his avenger dad thriller “Taken.”

Drebin investigates the suspicious death of a man killed in a wrecked car, which gets picked up by what appears to be a huge claw that people use to snare prizes in an arcade game, except that the claw always drops the prize. Guess what happens to the wrecked car?

Drebin’s investigation leads him to ruthless electric car kazillionaire Richard Cane (Danny Huston in evil capitalist mode), who uses a plot device that’s literally a hand-held device with PLOT written on it. He schemes to release a gas that causes people to devolve into a “28 Days Later” state and pave the way for him to restart civilization in his own twisted, rich white guy vision.

Meanwhile, the widowed Drebin’s eye gets hooked by a voluptuous, scat-screeching femme fatale named Beth Davenport, refreshingly played by 58-year-old Pamela Anderson in a role usually given to actresses much younger than their leading men. (Wait a minute — isn’t Neeson 73?)

At a restaurant, Drebin struggles to quickly concoct a phony name to protect Beth’s identity. Desperately glancing around for inspiration, he introduces her as “Miss Cherry Roosevelt Fat Bozo Chowing Down on Spaghetti.” It’s a funny bit. But only the first time.

This unclothed pistol movie may play better for audiences unfamiliar with the Nielsen films (1988, 1991 and 1994), even though it lacks the bite, shock and awesomeness of that trilogy.

Especially the first film that employed audacious, jaw-dropping gags, such as Drebin’s classic double-entendre involving a beaver (lackadaisically referenced here).

Schaffer’s film comes close to this when it brutally references Bill Cosby and O.J. Simpson (a supporting actor in the 1988 movie). But most of his “Naked Gun” sprinkles a few laugh-worthy moments over a hodgepodge of bits struggling to be worthy of the original films, created by the team of Jerry Zucker, Jim Abrahams and David Zucker — inspired by their own 1980 wind-breaking epic “Airplane!”

Compare the romantic montage send-ups in this movie and the first, which featured Nielsen and Priscilla Presley in a nonstop giggle fest that merrily fried Hollywood clichés. Here, with “Nothing’s Gonna Stop Us Now” playing, Neeson and Anderson replicate the concept in a bit that feels tired and done-to-death.

Then there’s the snowman that Beth and Drebin bring to life (through an “Evil Dead” book of witchcraft) so they can participate in a flaky ménage a trois before things descend into a slasher horror movie.

Shirley, you must be joking.

• • •

Starring: Liam Neeson, Pamela Anderson, CCH Pounder, Danny Huston

Directed by: Akiva Schaffer

Other: A Paramount Pictures theatrical release. Rated PG-13 for partial nudity, sexual situations, violence. 85 minutes