Liam Neeson, Pamela Anderson comedy is the biggest surprise of the year

Nobody in their right mind would reboot “The Naked Gun.”

Crime procedural spoofs were played out long ago.

Leslie Nielsen, the original’s iconic and seemingly irreplaceable star, died in 2010. 

And lest we forget that his right-hand man for the “Police Squad” trilogy was a pre-murder-trial O.J. Simpson.

That’s why the new “Naked Gun,” starring Liam Neeson and Pamela Anderson, is the biggest surprise of the year. Someway, somehow, it’s the funniest movie to hit theaters in a long time.

We’re talking gasping-for-air, “get my inhaler!” hilarious. In the spirit of the 1988 classic, director Akiva Schaffer’s movie carpet bombs us with non-stop jokes — from stupid to clever to utterly deranged. They never, ever let up.   

And its unlikely success begins with the inspired casting of Neeson — a 73-year-old leading man known for revenge thrillers and barely cracking a grin on red carpets — as Lt. Frank Drebin, Jr.

There’s a precedent for giving the “Schindler’s List” Oscar nominee the career-pivot gig. 

When his predecessor Nielsen first appeared in the “Naked Gun” filmmakers’ “Airplane” in 1980, launching him as the Spoofmaster General, he was considered a serious actor too. But he was Santa Claus next to bloodthirsty Neeson.

In the past five years, the Irish actor has made seven movies whose posters show him holding a gun.

From the very first scene in the new “The Naked Gun,” the “Taken” star takes that cold and intimidating image and blows it to smithereens. 

Lampooning “Mission: Impossible,” he enters a bank that’s being robbed dressed as a skipping schoolgirl, rips off his mask, miraculously becomes three feet taller and subdues the thugs in an undersized skirt. He bites off the barrel of a gun and chews it.

And that’s one of the film’s more restrained bits.

Get ready for the outrageous, steamy magical snowman montage with Neeson and Anderson that’s set to “Nothing’s Gonna Stop Us Now” by Starship.

The gags are the star — not the story — and the movie is better for it. By the end, I could barely recall most of what actually happened. 

But, through the tears of laughter, I gathered that Drebin, the hardened son of Nielsen’s LA cop, needs to prevent an evil billionaire named Richard Cane (Danny Huston) from unleashing technology on the world that will turn humanity into primal killers.

That machine hysterically is called the P.L.O.T. Device.

With Police Squad at risk of closure, Drebin teams up with Anderson’s sultry Beth Davenport, who has her own score to settle. 

The movie’s only 85 minutes. Have you ever read a more beautiful sentence?

With such a tight runtime, “The Naked Gun” never relaxes, and pushes the actors to their energetic limits.

Not only does Anderson, whose acting renaissance has been an unexpected joy, play up her old “Baywatch” persona to embody a noir femme fatale. She goes fully bananas.

When the pair is trying to steal the P.L.O.T Device from Cane, Beth distracts the baddie in a jazz club by taking the stage and scatting. It’s ridiculous. An out-of-body experience.

She and Neeson have great chemistry, too, which after recent news reports that they’re an item comes as less of a shock. Most vital, both play their parts without winks or self-awareness. It’s hard to imagine, but growling Neeson is even more committed to the bit than Nielsen was.

Any lingering doubts should be assuaged by the resumes of the “Naked Gun” team, which are perfectly suited to this style of humor — an assault of absurdity. 

Schaffer is a member of “The Lonely Island” (“I’m On A Boat”) and “Family Guy” creator Seth MacFarlane is a producer. You can see their hands in every ridiculous, meticulous joke — even after their movie is over.

I normally find post-credit sequences to be a tedious roadblock between me and the bathroom. But here they’ve crafted one of the best of all time. 

Nobody in their right mind would reboot “The Naked Gun.” So, thank God these filmmakers clearly are not in their right mind.