it’s consistently funny and inventive.

The enthusiastic Zucker, Zucker & Abrahams style of movie parody is too rarely seen to prompt much head-shaking about gags that don't work. The entire film is justified by those gags that do succeed, beginning with a pre-credit sequence that is possibly one of the most blithely hilarious six or seven minutes of film stock ever exposed to light.

The plot exists to be disregarded, the characters are deliberately constructed of cardboard, the sight gags are idiotic, and the dialogue is dumb. Really dumb. So dumb you laugh twice, once because of how stupid it is, and the second time because you fell for it.

Zucker, who collaborated with his brother Jerry and Jim Abrahams on such comedies as "Airplane!" and "Ruthless People," is working solo here. And aside from a flat patch midway through, he delivers as faithfully as Domino's pizza. In the limbo of comedy, few can go lower than Zucker without visibly straining. And the movie has a message: "Love is like the ozone layer; you never miss it until it's gone."

A bit of advice: Get to "The Naked Gun 2½" on time and plan to stay till they turn the lights back on. The opening and closing credits alone are almost worth the price of admission.