Airplane Redux A movie reflected upon years after the fact

"Do you like movies about Gladiators?"

Yes, who can forget such a loaded question?

If you're like me, and you're probably not, the two classic "Airplane!" movies have melded into one blob.

I was introduced to the franchise thanks to cable TV. The hedonistic days when "Star Wars" and "Fraggle Rock" and Wham! Videos turned an active youth into a pudgy couch potato. There within, "Airplane! II" kept me laughing as often as Gremlins appeared on television.

However, as it has been nearly 15 years since I had seen the first Airplane! I had lost favor with the Abrahams-Zucker team somewhere around the time that Hot Shots Part Deux came out, and had been ignoring the screwball genre for quite a while.

Upon watching this movie the other night, I was struck by how much of the jokes were pop cultural based, when before that time, I was young enough to imagine that it was original jokes.

Yet, I'm also now versed enough to understand the joke about Elaine giving the Automatic Pilot a little inflation...if you know what I mean.

However, it's still watchable compared to the current batch of people mugging for the camera.

What happened?

It's the acting!

Robert Stack and company are right for it because they aren't trying desperately hard to land a punch line. It just happens.

And Leslie Nielsen had proven from the very beginning as to why he became the king of that genre. That guy is irreplaceable in these movies and especially Naked Gun, but then, something changed to where he tried to add goofy faces to it and slid from being a good straight-faced comic to acting like someone's grandpa at a birthday party.

Oh well. I'm sure it's partially because of the movies that he's had to trade down from...from the first classic Naked Gun movie to crap like Devil in a Blue Dress. Poor guy.

However, I don't think the genre is necessarily dead, so here is hopes to someone other than the guys that brought you Scary Movie III will rise from the depths.