By I hate it when I have to review movies like The Naked Gun. It isn’t because the movie is bad – quite the opposite. I had a fantastic time laughing my ass off at a movie that delivered joke after joke with such a straight face that it, at times, felt like a long-lost Naked Gun movie. Sure, there’s a bit of that modern sheen to its plot points that remind you that this was a comedy made in 2025, but most of the jokes are just stupid gags that would find a nice home in a parody in the late 80s and early 90s.
The problem is that I can’t tell you any specific reason why it’s so funny, because even hinting at what a joke may be would ruin it, and expecting a joke would cause the joke to fail. Granted, that isn’t the case with every joke, but I still don’t want to run the risk of the punchlines getting spoiled because of me. You’re just gonna have to trust me when I say that The Naked Gun is hilarious and needs all the love and support you can give it.
The Naked Gun
Director: Akiva Schaffer
Release Date: August 1, 2025 (Theatrical)
Rating: PG-13
While I could start with a summary explaining what happened in the three decades between installments, frankly, I don’t feel that I need to. The earlier Naked Gun films, and Police Squad to a small extent, barely register in the larger plot, and all you need to know is that Liam Neeson is Frank Drebin Jr., the son of Leslie Neilson’s Frank Drebin. Does it matter that Liam Neeson doesn’t look like he’s in his 30s at all, given that he was born in the early 90s? Nope, and shut up and stop asking questions. There’s nothing worse than a person who asks questions in a comedy.
Anyway, he’s followed in his dad’s footsteps, and now he’s a part of Police Squad. Is he good? Yes and no, but it doesn’t matter, because he pissed off the chief of police after stopping a bank heist, and now he’s put on traffic duty. Shortly after, he’s called in about a car accident that happened in the dead of night and meets with the victim’s sister, played by Pamela Anderson. She says something is afoot because her brother’s death was ruled a suicide when he was driving to meet her to discuss something. So, of course, the bank heist Drebin was on somehow connects to the car accident, which leads to a huge conspiracy and Drebin doing anything and everything in his power to stop the tech billionaire, Richard Caine (Danny Huston), before he gets away with his evil plan. And no, that’s not a spoiler since not even a minute into the film, Danny Huston basically tells the audience that he’s the villain, so it reads less as a twist and more of a formality the film is just getting out of the way.
In case you can’t tell, the plot is pretty bare-bones, which is in line with virtually everything else about the film. The Naked Gun is less than 90 minutes, which is eye-poppingly short for a theatrical film, but it told me a few things about what I was going to get out of it. First, this was a film that wasn’t going to overstay its welcome and seemed eager to hop from one joke to another and race towards its conclusion. Two, it wasn’t going to pad out its runtime with unnecessary drama. Both of these statements are 100% accurate, and this is a comedy in the boldest definition of the word.
Copyright: Paramount
Not a shot goes by where there isn’t at least one joke on-screen. In fact, out of curiosity, I tried to count all the jokes in a scene at a nightclub, and I lost count after two minutes. There were visual gags, quips, prosthetics, slapstick, cameos, and just odd set-ups that feel more at home in a Family Guy episode, which honestly makes sense given that Seth MacFarlane produced this. Now, for those of you who hate Family Guy, don’t expect the same kind of shock humor that Family Guy has become synonymous with over the past few years, because it’s Akiva Shaffer is in the director’s chair, making sure a lot of the jokes are universally understood, but equally funny, lining up more with the sheer stupidity of Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping.
I did worry about the casting of Liam Neeson, not because he’s not a great actor, but because he’s a great action movie star. Leslie Neilson worked wonderfully as Frank Drebin because his deadpan seriousness was honed through years of being on police procedurals, while Neeson’s wheelhouse has almost always been action movies. Because of this, I worried that The Naked Gun may try to come off more like a parody of action movies and overlook what made the original Naked Gun movies so funny with how laser tight they were at parodying cop shows of the 80s. Thankfully, that isn’t the case, and while there is a bit more action here than one may expect from the series, it never once forgets that it’s a comedy first and channels the energy of Mel Brooks whenever the film needs to get violent.
Neeson is great as Frank Drebin Jr., never once nudging or winking to the camera like he’s aware of the joke. His stern attitude only sells just how much of an idiot he really is, and you can’t help but love his stupidity. The same can be said for the rest of the cast, with special mention going to Pamela Anderson. She looks like she’s just having an absolute blast with the role, with most of her scenes leaning more into a noir detective angle while Neeson takes care of the action. Again, neither styles forget they’re a comedy first, which gives the film a surprising amount of variety. Just when you’re getting tired of the more action-oriented physical comedy, here comes Pamela Anderson to inject some classic Police Squad humor into things.
Copyright: Paramount
If there was one general weakness of the film, it would probably be with Danny Huston. He plays the evil CEO part well, but he always feels like he’s too straight for the film. Even in the face of all the weirdness and goofy humor, The Naked Gun treats him at times like the one sane person in the room, making comments about the strangeness of everything. It doesn’t happen too often, but it happens just often enough that you feel like he’s not in command of his scenes and is more just going with the flow of the film. The jokes he makes still land, but they’re usually at his expense rather than because of something that he did. He does decide to start chewing some scenery in the climax of the film, which is a nice touch, but it’s a bit too little too late.
We don’t get movies like The Naked Gun anymore. Not just traditional comedies that dedicate every fiber of their being to trying to make us laugh, but comedies with a modest budget. This is the kind of movie that would have become a cult classic in the mid-2000s alongside Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy or Dodgeball, getting played on television on endless reruns. Comedies today are instead more interested in having half-hearted improv or trying to add some semblance of a plot to give the film an emotional core. But if The Naked Gun succeeds, and I hope to GOD it succeeds, then it needs to send the message that audiences want movies that are just stupid and don’t care about plot or character drama. It should let studios know that comedies should focus on providing tight scripts with a variety of styles of comedy, rather than fall back on forced improv.
I want this film to succeed. I want this to reach the same cult-status that Hundreds of Beavers did last year. It has a much tougher road to climb, since it will always be compared to the original Naked Gun movies, and for as good as Liam Neeson is here, he’s no Leslie Neilson. It’s still great for its own unique style, tone, and kind of humor, and even if you think the movie looks too stupid, I guarantee you that there’s at least one joke in it that will leave you dying with laughter. I can’t tell you which one, but there was one for me, and there certainly will be one for you.
