The third time is not the charm in this case. Here, the Naked Gun formula wears paper thin; the subtle art behind the blatantly obvious humor is no longer evident. What made the original film -- and its precursor, Airplane! -- so funny was that all the wacky, ludicrous happenings were played so completely and utterly straight. Here, the action is hammed up by self-destructive comic punctuation. Another reason these earlier films were funny is that a lot of gags were played in the background -- remember the mechanic changing the oil of the plane in Airplane!? -- but here, similar gags occur in the foreground and simply don't work. With better direction, this series entry might have been worthwhile, but as it is, it has no better reason to exist than to cash in on previous successes.