Everywhere you look, something reminds you of it.

“It,” in this case, is the absurdly funny, ridiculously silly 1988 slapstick comedy “The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad!” — which saw Leslie Nielsen shine as bumbling detective Frank Drebin. (After the success of their similar-in-tone “Airplane!” in 1980, filmmakers Jim Abrahams and brothers David and Jerry Zucker took Nielsen, an effective supporting player from that riot of a flick, and put him in what proved to be the short-lived comedy TV series “Police Squad!”)

And when we say “everywhere,” we mean everywhere within the frame of “The Naked Gun,” the reboot film hitting theaters this week.

When you heard that Paramount Pictures was relaunching the “Naked Gun” franchise with ageless action star Liam Neeson starring as Police Squad Lieutenant Frank Drebin Jr., you thought, “Well, that COULD be … OK.”

Know what? It is … OK.

For a while, in fact, “The Naked Gun” is something better than that, generating laughs, sometimes of the very hearty variety, at an impressive clip. However, as it bangs on through what is a noticeably short runtime of less than 90 minutes, it loses a lot of what passes for its charm, even as it’s paying constant homage to the first film and, to a lesser degree, its two sequels.

This fourth “Naked Gun” was developed early on by “Family Guy” mastermind Seth MacFarlane, who directed Neeson in the movies “A Million Ways to Die in the West” (2014) and “Ted 2” (2015). The influence of MacFarlane, who’s counted among the producers of “The Naked Gun,” shows, with at least a handful of jokes that are cruder than what you got in the earlier movies. Some are downright hilarious, while others go too far.

Regardless, you can’t help but appreciate the way Neeson throws himself into the role, his deadpan-comedy chops apparent from the movie’s opening bank-heist scene, much of which was featured in a teaser for the film. Initially disguised as a little girl with a lollipop, Frank Jr. soon is stabbing criminals with it, as well as biting off part of his would-be killer’s gun. Hey, we’d never question the action-movie bona fides of the star of 2008’s “Taken” and the myriad shooting-and-punching affairs it helped spawn.

What follows in “The Naked Gun” is a steady stream of cops-and-coffee gags — again, many of them landing.

As with the first film, Frank butts heads with a female higher-up; in this case, that’s CCH Pounder’s Chief Davis, who scolds him for, among other offenses, his violent behavior at a McDonald’s. (They wouldn’t serve him “freedom fries.”) Frank thinks he’s essentially above the law — who would even arrest him? Other cops? (Yes is the answer.)

And, similarly, a blond bombshell walks into Frank’s life — Pamela Anderson’s Beth Davenport, about whose body Frank waxes, um, poetically and whose brother supposedly has committed suicide. She’s not buying it, believing he was murdered by a wealthy and powerful Los Angeles businessman, Richard Cane (Danny Huston of “Yellowstone”). Although Frank initially wants her to stay out of his way, they soon team up to investigate Cane and, of course, fall for each other in the process.

As “The Naked Gun” depends increasingly more on its story — which involves Cane’s nefarious plan to use the Primordial Law of Toughness, or P.L.O.T., device to alter society for his benefit — the less enjoyable it becomes. Director Akiva Schaffer, of the Lonely Island comedy-music troupe, and his co-writers, Dan Gregor and Doug Mand, keep firing off jokes, but they less frequently hit their marks.

While Neeson delights, former “Baywatch” star Anderson, who earned praise for her performance in last year’s “The Last Showgirl,” gives a flat performance. Well, that is aside from a scene in which Beth, needing to distract Cane so Frank can try to check out surveillance footage at a supper club the villain owns, performs an ad-libbed jazz piece and, you know, really explores the space musically.

The supporting cast also boasts the dependable Paul Walter Hauser (“Richard Jewell”) as Ed Hocken Jr., the son of Frank Sr.’s old partner, Ed. However, while Hauser excels at playing the oddest ball in the room, that’s not what he’s called upon to do in “The Naked Gun,” and his work is entirely forgettable.

An effective early sequence in “The Naked Gun” sees Frank talking to a portrait of his late father at police headquarters, followed by Ed doing the same with one of his. We then see many officers taking part in that ritual, the room being home to many such portraits — including one, awkwardly but appropriately, of the late O.J. Simpson’s Detective Nordberg.

Whatever this movie’s faults, it’s pretty clear MacFarlane, Schaffer and others hold plenty of reverence for the series, so it’s a bit of a bummer that David Zucker, for one, has proclaimed he has no intention of seeing it.

If you’re a fan of the franchise, it is worth seeing — just keep your expectations at a reasonable level.

It’s not, to borrow a phrase from the original, that there’s “nothing to see here” and that you should “keep moving.” However, there’s very little fresh and new to see here, either.

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'THE NAKED GUN'

2.5 stars (out of 4)

MPA rating: PG-13 (for crude/sexual material, violence/bloody images and brief partial nudity)

Running time: 1:25

How to watch: In theaters Aug. 1

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