3 out of 5

Directed by: Peter Segal

I was expecting bad things.  My memory of the flick was that it was a bit flat compared to the original and 2 1/2, and later viewings registered an unfortunate transsexual joke (we were “progressive” in the 90s to no longer make direct gay jokes, but we hadn’t progressed that far at that point, see also: Ace Ventura) and an over-reliance on recycled Police Squad gags.  Plus, my director awareness is a bit more keen nowadays, and I pegged Peter Segal as a “master” of Adam Sandler movies, i.e. maybe not my ideal comedy director.

But y’know what?  He actually injects more life into the movie than Zucker did with the second, works-in-fits-and-spurts flick, keeping a consistent flow of gags that prevent us from worrying about anything else, such as a plot – Fred Ward plans to blow up something something terrorist – but this is somewhere between the muddled focus of the first movie and the (relatively) straight and narrow path of the second, finding a comfortable cadence that checks in to remind us why we’re doing X, Y or Z, but has no bones about clearly setting us up for gags involving sperm donors and Phil Donahue.  And those re-purposed Police Squad jokes turn out to be a boon: when in need of a laugh, just go to what you know; it ends up feeling more like a loving embrace of the series than lazy, and gives Segal and writers Robert LoCash, Zucker, and Pat Proft more room to play the see-what-sticks game with the material, making it maybe slightly less forced than some of 2 1/2’s sequences.

So, sure, we’re squarely in slapstick and visual gags territory, but NG 3 keeps the ball rolling much better than expected, the movie in constant motion and wringing great comedic performances from its seasoned cast.