The Unbridled Joy of 'Naked Gun' | Review

Please let this be the return of the theatrical comedy!

Recapturing the magic of the original Naked Gun trilogy would be nearly impossible in 2025. But somehow, the creative team behind The Naked Gun comes extremely close.

Replacing the great Leslie Nielsen was the biggest challenge to continuing the series. Nielsen’s pitch-perfect deadpan delivery played the films completely straight without a tongue-in-cheek moment or a self-aware wink at the camera. Nielsen’s dry-as-a-bone style (“saying unfunny things in an unfunny way,” as he once put it) is the glue that holds the original trilogy together. If Nielsen ever broke character to let the audience in on the joke, the whole conceit of the film’s sense of humor would break down.

The original trilogy (The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad!, The Naked Gun 2 and 1/2: The Smell of Fear, and The Naked Gun 33 and 1/3: The Final Insult) maintained a consistent quality thanks to Nielsen’s performance. ABC famously cancelled the television show that would becoming the movies, Police Squad!, after just six episodes because its humor was too intricate and clever for an easily distracted television audience. (One network executive infamously remarked that the show was being cancelled because “the viewer had to watch it in order to appreciate it.”)

It helped that Nielsen started his career as a serious actor who starred in science fiction classics like 1950’s Forbidden Planet, only making his transition to comedies decades into his career. So it’s only fitting that 2025’s The Naked Gun casts one of the great serious actors of our age — Liam Neeson — in the role of Frank Drebin, Jr.

The Naked Gun’s humor doesn’t quite operate on the same intricate level. There are lots of broad and juvenile jokes that will appeal to audiences of all ages. But the film’s unapologetic, unironic embrace of silliness is what makes it work, and what sets it apart from so many other major blockbusters.

Indeed, the sheer quantity of jokes is what makes The Naked Gun work so well. Director Akiva Schaffer packs an astonishing number of gags and jokes into the 85 minute running time. If a joke doesn’t land for you, don’t worry about it! There’ll be another one in about 15 seconds.

You may roll your eyes at the film’s repeated use of scatological jokes, but if you do, you’ll miss a more subtle background gag about taking the term “cold cases” literally. From voice-over jokes that pay tribute to the original’s dry wit¹ to an absurdist homage midway through the film to Jack Frost, the relentless pace of jokes does wear a bit tired by the end of the film. But the 85-minute runtime reflects the fact that Schaffer edited the film to within a moment of its life, leaving absolutely no room for fluff.

The jokes range from chuckle-worthy to sidesplittingly hilarious. The sequences set in the police station are an absolute delight: the movie is moving a mile a minute as characters deliver exposition while presenting a panoply of visual jokes in the background.

It also helps that the entire cast is acting at the height of their dramatic powers. Neeson —who has had a career renaissance as a deadly serious old man action star — is an ideal spiritual successor to Nielsen, as he is completely committed to playing all of his lines as seriously as possible. Danny Huston is pitch-perfect as the antagonist, despite the fact that the film riffs a little too heavily on major plot elements of Kingsman: The Golden Circle. And Pamela Anderson is a surprising revelation as the all-important female lead, continuing another promising late career renaissance.² She matches Neeson’s performance perfectly.

There was also an unbridled joy to seeing the movie with a guffawing crowd. The death of the theatrical comedy has been one of the worst developments of the streaming era. The Naked Gun follows in the footsteps of 2023’s criminally underrated No Hard Feelings, which failed to make much of an impact at the box office. And the dearth of theatrical comedies in the interim suggests that the exodus of comedic stars to streaming services has had the effect of sapping audience interest in big screen comedies.

That’s why it’s important to see The Naked Gun in a theater with the biggest crowd possible. Sharing multiple laughs with an audience heightens the enjoyment of the film, and goes to show that theaters don’t need Avengers: Endgame-level events to get reactions out of audiences. A solid opening weekend suggests that there’s still some audience appetite for the big-screen comedy. Let’s hope that more comedies follow The Naked Gun’s lead by putting stars front and center, creating a clear tone, and embracing the magic of movie theaters.

1. “Like a teenager with three babysitting jobs, I didn’t need another babysitting job” is our new “Like a midget at a urinal, I was going to have to stay on my toes.”

2. For all the (well-deserved) credit that Nielsen gets for the original trilogy, the underrated glue of those movies is Priscilla Presley, who has the unenviable job of trying to hold every scene together without any self-awareness while Nielsen riffs.