The Naked Gun (2025)

The Naked Gun is not a remake. It is a direct continuation of the original series of films, done with a clear level of care and love for the goofy classics. There are five times as many jokes in the film as it has minutes in the run time. Most of them will give you at least a chuckle. Even at its most stupid, the film is typically uproariously, gloriously dumb funny.  Blending action, mystery, slapstick, and even horror, this occasionally genre-bending comedy stars Liam Neeson as Frank Drebin, Jr, alongside Pamela Anderson and Danny Huston. The rest of the cast, including CCH Pounder and Paul Walter Hauser, provide more than ample support.

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Directed by Akiva Schaffer (Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping, Chip ‘n Dale: Rescue Rangers), The Naked Gun is a film that relies on a cast totally committed to the unreality of the situations, able to play the most ludicrous events straight. This is a film borrowing, ripping off and nodding to and from classic films, particularly noirs, horror, science fiction, and the zany action comedies of which the originals were such prime examples. It is a film that asks its cast to have absolutely no fear, and they answer the call, no matter how low or high the joke.

Huston, as a tech billionaire, makes a fun, outsized, Bond-worthy villain, in a film that at times seems to owe as much to Austin Powers as it does to the Police Squad universe. Indeed, one of the better sequences is directly lifted from one of that franchise’s best scenes. It still works, and is at least as funny here as it was there. Anderson, coming across as part femme-fatale and part conflicted heroine, is not given a ton of complex material, but shows herself to be game and more than up to the task. Yet, it is Neeson, following in the shoes of the immortal Leslie Nielson, who is asked to carry the bulk of the film. He more than rises to the occasion, creating a character that seems to be part Marlow or Spade, part Drebin and part each of the vicious vengeance seeking action heroes he has played for the last two decades.

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This is a goofy film that knows it is goofy and knows that the funniest thing is an absolutely insane situation played utterly straight. Imagine, for instance, a car being pulled out of a lake, using a crane operate like an arcade claw machine, or a line of henchmen that goes so deep, it starts pulling in little old ladies and construction workers from the site next door. This specific level of absurdity is maintained until almost the breaking point. Thankfully, the film knows when to pull back and when to end. There are, of course, other elements and surprises this review will not spoil.

Schaffer’s reboot is a film with both wordplay and physical comedy, including sight gags as well as humor both sexual and body functional. It breaks the fourth wall, and nods to the past of its stars, as well as to off-screen troubles. There are times you may ask yourself if what you are seeing is supposed to be real, within the narrative of the film, and the answer is always, yes, it is supposed to all be happening. Additionally, much like a Mel Brooks film, or the Zucker-Abrahams comedies of the past – such as Naked Gun – this is a film without filter, that does not merely push boundaries but crosses them, gleefully.

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If you have been asking yourself what happened to the comedies of yesteryear and if they would ever be able to be made today, the answer is, they do not make them like that anymore, except this one time. I do not want to call The Naked Gun a future classic, but it is a hell of a fun ride, never less than entertaining and often so funny you may need to catch your breath. Recommended.

The Naked Gun is now playing in theaters.