So many comedies have tried to replicate what David and Jerry Zucker, and Jim Abrahams perfected with films like Airplane! and The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad!, but it takes a keen comedic mind to do it right. On paper, a reboot to The Naked Gun starring Liam Neeson and Pamela Anderson sounds like one of the many legacy projects that comes and goes without any fanfare, but director Akiva Schaffer (who co-writes the screenplay with Dan Gregor and Doug Mand) has a clear affinity for what works so well with the franchise, and the result is one of the best comedies in years.

For all his late career work as an action star, Neeson has a surprisingly solid streak in comedic roles. The Naked Gun combines the two personas, as Neeson’s Lt. Frank Drebin Jr. carries on his deceased father’s legacy of being the “All Time Bad Guy Catcher” of Police Squad. He carries the same gruff demeanor, even while all manner of silliness and absurdity happens all around him. Schaffer knows the audience will inevitably compare the new version to the beloved original, and the film has plenty of fun exploiting the very culture of originality in Hollywood. Frank even professes, to a shrine of Leslie Nielsen, that he wants to be just like him, “but totally original and different.”

The plot, as with all films in the franchise, begins with a seemingly routine death and quickly spirals out of control to be more and more absurd. But you don’t come to The Naked Gun for the plot; you come to see a thousand jokes per minute, and Schaffer delivers in spades. Between all the clever wordplay, goofy non-sequiturs, sight gags, silly props, or just plain dumb humor, I can’t remember the last time I’ve laughed so hard with such frequency in the theater. And in an era when theatrically-released studio comedies are as rare as “a woman that was put together in all the right ways: face, head, shoulders, knees, and toes, knees and toes,” it makes The Naked Gun worth celebrating.

That perfectly constructed woman, of course, is Pamela Anderson, who nearly upstages Neeson as Beth Davenport, whose role as a breathy bombshell isn’t too dissimilar from Priscilla Presley’s in the original trilogy. Both Neeson and Anderson are fully committed to what the film asks of them both physically and emotionally; The Naked Gun‘s most radical commentary perhaps is in filling its roster mostly with middle-aged stars. Paul Walter Hauser adds another level of humor as Ed Hocken Jr., and Danny Huston is delightfully deranged as the bad guy, a tech billionaire. If there’s anything left to be desired with the film, it’s in leaving out the legacy of Nordberg (of course, played by OJ Simpson in the originals) beyond one (very funny) joke.

In a bizarre cosmic joke, I watched The Naked Gun a day after Happy Gilmore 2, Adam Sandler’s legasequel to his megahit from the 90s. There are similarities between the two properties on the surface, and they occasionally share the same comic sensibilities in landing a joke before serving the plot. But Schaffer’s film feels like it comes from another planet entirely. For one, it hums along at under 90 minutes (stick around not just for the post-credits scene, but for Liam Neeson’s original song, and the joke credits hidden amongst the real ones), while Gilmore is padded to a punishing near-2 hours. If nothing else, The Naked Gun is a welcome reminder that, in the horrible world we live in, laughing along with a crowded theater is still a joy worth experiencing.

The Naked Gun will be in theaters nationwide on August 1.

OSCAR POTENTIAL:

• No Oscar hopes here, but in a just world, The Naked Gun would clean up in the Comedy/Musical categories at the Golden Globes, especially for Neeson and Anderson.