The Naked Gun Review
Liam Neeson in The Naked Gun. Courtesy of Paramount Pictures
Police procedural parody The Naked Gun, from director Akiva Schaffer (The Lonely Island, Pop Star: Never Stop Never Stopping, Chip N Dale: Rescue Rangers) **and producer Seth MacFarlane (Family Guy, Ted), brings us back to Police Squad headquarters for the first time since the release of Naked Gun 33 1/3: The Final Insult in 1994. The new legacy sequel stars a perfectly cast Liam Neeson as Frank Drebin Jr., son of Frank Drebin. Leslie Nielsen played that original protagonist; he wasn’t just the franchise lead, but also the face of this long-dormant style of parody.
This comedy of The Naked Gun trilogy has long been out of style. David Zucker, Jim Abrahams, and Jerry Zucker’s original Police Squad TV show and films followed the template the creators set in Airplane!. These movies spoof genre, character, and narrative tropes; in the case of The Naked Gun, cop and detective stories.
Paul Walter Hauser and Liam Neeson in The Naked Gun. Courtesy of Paramount Pictures
The humor in the dialogue leans into clever wordplay and silly literal misunderstandings, all delivered with absolute, deadpan seriousness—Leslie Nielsen was a master at this. The other half of the style is the visual comedy. Aside from broad physical slapstick, the world of these movies is brimming with visual gags. Jokes can be in costumes and set designs; sometimes, it’s action that happens in the background, as single-shot throwaway jokes unrelated to the plot. The density of the gags in these movies, verbal and visual, is unmatched. If a joke didn't land, another one is seconds away. Maybe you’ll even miss some, because the jokes are often layered over each other and happen at the same time. The absurdity mounts continuously.
Comedies that followed, particularly the wave of spoofs popularized by Scary Movie in the 2000s, were different. Scary Movie relied heavily on specific movie and cultural references, as opposed to tropes, resulting in that series quickly becoming dated. Scary Movie also emphasized more gross-out humor. Yes, you can say the Naked Gun movies are stupid. But there’s a genius behind that stupidity in the comedy and wordplay. Scary Movie just didn’t carry the same weight, even with later entries directed by David Zucker himself.
Considering that there hasn’t been a movie like the original The Naked Gun films in a very long time, I was skeptical about this legacy sequel. Would the studio powers that be deem that a modern audience was ready for the return of these comedies? Could the writers and directors pull it off convincingly? Would Liam Neeson hold up as the deadpan leading man at the center of this madness?
The answer to all these questions is yes. The Naked Gun is a brilliant return to form.
Pamela Anderson and Liam Neeson in The Naked Gun. Courtesy of Paramount Pictures
Liam Neeson is Frank Drebin Jr., and Paul Walter Hauser is Ed Hocken Jr., both the progeny of the original Police Squad partner detectives. Pamela Anderson plays femme fatale Beth Davenport. Danny Huston is villainous tech billionaire Richard Kane, and Kevin Durand plays top henchman Sig Gustafson. CCH Pounder plays Chief Davis. Everyone is great and all had their moments to shine in hilarious moments. Most importantly, Liam Neeson was pitch-perfect in his role, expertly subverting the audience's expectations of his “man with a particular set of skills” persona.
The plot details aren’t important. You can see this illustrated in the film’s inciting incident—the theft of an electronic gizmo hilariously labeled “PLOT Device” from a bank safe deposit box, a meta joke clearly spelling out how the story will purposely be a cliché. The plot is just a structure for the jokes and gags to live in; those are the most important part of a movie like this, and they’re packed densely. It’s like the movie is a suitcase that’s so full of jokes that you’d have to get two people to sit on it to be able to close it, and then feel relieved you don’t have to leave anything behind. Even the ending credits have hidden jokes. Comedies that are this funny are rare.
Kevin Durand in The Naked Gun. Courtesy of Paramount Pictures
The Naked Gun is not high art, but it knows exactly what it needs to do and does it nearly perfectly. It’s a worthy successor to the series—not a reinvention, but a perfect continuation, and that’s what it needed to be. Sure, this could have been done with an original IP, but police drama is an endless well of material ripe for parody, and a familiar franchise helps bring audiences to theater seats. I hope to see renewed interest in the Leslie Nielsen classics and more comedies like this back on the big screen.
The Naked Gun opens in theaters on August 1, 2025.
