The Naked Gun (United States, 2025)

One of the reasons why The Naked Gun works as well as it does is that the series has been allowed a 32-year rest since the release of the wretched Naked Gun 33 1/3. That's a long enough pause for audiences to forget what went sour with the Police Squad! continuation and begin to long for the simple laughter that such comedy could bring. This Naked Gun feels more like the original Naked Gun (and the TV series that begat the movies) than the original two '90s sequels. Although almost none of the original contributors had any part in the reboot (with the exceptions of cameos by Priscilla Presley and Weird Al Yankovich), the affection of the new creative crew – producer Seth MacFarlane, director Akiva Schaffer, and others – is evident. They have plainly studied the earlier material and made a conscious effort to mimic the distinctive ZAZ (Zucker-Abrams-Zucker) flavor. 

Perhaps the most often-repeated phrase about The Naked Gun is that it's chock-full of "dumb comedy." Truth is, there's nothing "dumb" about the gags (both physical and verbal) that arrive with the rat-a-tat-tat pace of a machine gun firing. No, the humor is not intellectual, dark, or tongue-in-cheek. But the innate corniness of the puns and pratfalls requires precise planning and execution. I've seen plenty of comedies that earn the "dumb" label through the laziness and lack of effort associated with the jokes. Accessible humor that doesn't require a PhD to decode doesn't make a movie dumb. Naked Gun-style parodies live or die based on laugh quotient and this one has a high spike in that regard. It takes effort and commitment to do old-school well and labeling it as "dumb" feels dismissive. 

Liam Neeson is a solid choice to replace the late Leslie Nielsen. Although their careers have not followed similar trajectories (Neeson having ascended to the A-list while Nielsen never quite got there), their approach to Frank Drebin is much the same – utilize established reputations and innate gravitas for comedic purposes. They work because they effectively play the straight man amidst all the surrounding lunacy. 

Do we care about the storyline? Not really. I didn't invest much effort into trying to follow it – doing so is a distraction. It's something about how an accident investigation by Frank and his partner, Ed Hocken Jr. (Paul Walter Hauser playing the son of the late George Kennedy's character), dovetails with a bank robbery with all trails leading back to the oily billionaire tech magnate Richard Cane (Danny Huston) and his henchman (Kevin Durand). Along the way, widower Frank finds love with Beth Davenport (Pamela Anderson) and clashes with his dour, always-angry superior, Chief Davis (CCH Pounder). 

Referencing specific jokes does little more than prove that I was paying attention while spoiling them. Seeing the trailer is a mistake – it dilutes some of the film's best comedic moments without the proper context in which to appreciate them. Admittedly, even with a short 85-minute running time, The Naked Gun loses momentum as it chugs along. One of the reasons why Police Squad! (in color) remains the best chapter in the franchise's history is because it's a lot easier to sustain this brand of humor across 25 minutes than three times that. For those whose interest is fueled by nostalgia, there are plenty of Easter Eggs to be found with the most overt of these coming during and after the end credits, so stick around (they clock in at around five minutes, so it’s not like enduring the endless tedium of waiting for a Marvel Studios encore). Oh, and look for a gag embedded in the actual text. 

For what it is, The Naked Gun checks as many of the boxes as it needs to and proves to be a worthy revival of a series whose dormancy has become an asset. But the same warning applies here as it did some 35 years ago: with this style of comedy, less is often more. There is no room for a sequel because  anything more would be pointless repetition and regurgitation and comedy is never as funny the second or third time around. This is a fun, funny trifle that deserves to be enjoyed on its own terms – a throwback that only feels old when that serves its purposes.

The Naked Gun (United States, 2025)