The Naked Gun (2025) Review
I have to say this: I love silly comedies. The original The Naked Gun (and its sequels) are some of my favorite movies of all time. Some of my other favorites are Airplane!, The Mask, Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World, Napoleon Dynamite, and the Austin Powers series.
Suffice it to say, I had low expectations for this new incarnation. While I like Liam Neeson and I had heard good things about the film, I was still skeptical.
I was especially incredulous given that the movie was produced by Seth MacFarlane. MacFarlane is the creator of Family Guy I find Family Guy's sense of humor shallow and pedantic (that's a reference). Plus, his movies have not instilled any measure of confidence.
The Legacy
When I think back to the original Naked Gun films, what jumps out to me is how dedicated it is to the comedy. Everything in these films is a setup or a punchline. There's not an inch of wasted, non-comedic celluloid. Critically, though, the most important types of jokes were:
Visual Gags
The cop car with its siren on driving down the street, then driving through a car wash, then driving through someone's livingroom...
Misunderstandings Between Characters
Frank “It’s the same old story. Boy finds girl, boy loses girl, girl finds boy, boy forgets girl, boy remembers girl, girls dies in a tragic blimp accident over the Orange Bowl on New Year’s Day.”
Jane “Goodyear?”
Frank “No, the worst.”
Slapstick
OJ. Getting beat up. Every time. Genius.
Silly/Crude Humor
The Dry Delivery of Leslie Nielsen
Don't call me Shirley. (I know, that's from Airplane!, but you get the drift).
Review
And I believe this film lives up to the comedic giants that are it's predecessors.
The story really doesn't matter in this film. As the very first set piece of The Naked Gun (2025) made clear, with the "P.L.O.T. Device" McGuffin on screen within the first ten minutes... the story is just an excuse to laugh.
And let me say: for the most part the jokes in this film landed, at least they did for me. I went to see The Naked Gun (2025) with my best friend Karl, his wife Anna Leigh, and my girlfriend Emily. We saw the film at the 7 PM showing on Sunday, August 3rd which was several days after the film debuted. The theater was maybe at 12% capacity. Besides the four of us, there were three other couples and a single guy. We were also the youngest people in the theater by at least a decade.
I felt mildly self-conscious over the fact that Karl and I were the only ones laughing at most of the jokes. There were a few laugh out loud moments where the other theater patrons audibly laughed, but for the most part Karl and I were audibly chuckling through the duration. We found it genuinely hilarious.
Emily said she found it mildly amusing but "needs more realism" in her movies. Anna Leigh laughed quite frequently, but not as hard or as often as Karl and I did.
I'm also happy to report that there were only a few jokes that didn't really land for me. Most of the jokes that didn't hit were the "misunderstandings." Many of them felt like they were there because the original had them, but they weren't as clever or as natural as the originals.
I also want to note that the jokes from the trailers were some of the weakest in the whole film. To the point where when I saw The Naked Gun trailer before Superman, I was very off put. I thought it looked terrible.
Style
The style of the film felt like a very modern interpretation of The Naked Gun franchise. Where the original movies (and their predecessor TV series Police Squad) were a send-up of police procedurals and detective flicks of the day, this iteration was a parody of modern action films like John Wick and the Craig-era Bond films.
The action scenes were over the top and worked very well. One of the climactic set pieces used pistol clips rather than the bullets in them as projectiles which was clever and visually silly. And the final fight between Frank and the big bad was absolutely perfect.
Absurdity
I'm not spoiling anything because this is in one of the trailers. The opening scene was a bank robbery and a young girl dressed in what appears to be a Girl Scout uniform comes skipping in to the bank. She pulls off her mask and it's Liam Neeson as Frank Drebbin. Suddenly, he's a full sized man instead of a preteen Girl Scout. Delightfully absurd and I loved every second of it.
Though, I will say one absurd scene overstayed its welcome and it involved a snowman (and it was literally that it just went on too long). But otherwise, the absurdity was on point and welcome.
Visual Gags
There were a few excellent visual gags in the movie. However I wanted more. Perhaps I'll notice more upon further viewings.
I feel like the visual gags, incongruous framing, editing jokes, and props/characters moving in and out of frame in unexpected ways are an integral component of The Naked Gun... and hopefully a sequel will include even more.
References
The movie had multiple references to pop culture and the modern world. Mocking police officers, their swagger, and abuse of authority was highly topical and very welcome. But also they tackled the fact that OJ Simpson was in the original movies and it was handled in a great way. They brought back Weird Al, there was a Cosby reference, and the main villain was refreshing parody of a Jeff Bezos-like character.
Guns and Violence
Where did the media go so wrong? Maybe I'm just a stereotypical American, but I find guns inherently funny.
This movie? It knows guns are funny. The opening set piece? Proof positive. The final showdown? Such a unique and clever way to prove the point.
Liam Neeson
First off, I don't think it's a coincidence that Leslie Nielson's and Liam Neeson's names are so similar. Right off the bat: kudos.
He did a great job filling the role of Frank Drebbin's son, Frank Drebbin Jr.
Following in the expert example of his on-screen father, Neeson plays the role of Drebbin completely straight. In fact, these movies work very well when you think of the lead as the only straight-man in an absurdist facsimile of our world.
Neeson is great here because he has the action star gravitas of being Qui-Gon Jinn, Bryan Mills, and other characters.
But Neeson also has the comedic chops. He knows how to subtly wink-and-nod when he needs to. He knows how to deliver a punchline in a deadpan and hilarious way. And he was perfectly cast.
Pamela Anderson
Pamela Anderson played the smoldering, mature femme fatale Beth Davenport. She was investigating the death of her brother and provided motivation for Frank.
I have to say, her and Neeson had excellent chemistry with each other and her acting was on point. She played it a bit tongue-in-cheek and I found her enjoyable, funny, and silly.
Supporting Cast
I wanted more from the supporting cast. Paul Walter Hauser (I, Tonya, BlacKkKlansman) was here and I expected him to be a standout, but he didn't have much to do.
Liza Koshy (Transformers: Rise of the Beasts, A Family Affair) was also in this film. She was (maybe still is) a YouTuber and I've found her to be quite funny in the past. Yet, besides one Inception-style scene, she didn't really have much to do in the movie.
Then there were the odd cameos including Busta Rhymes, professional WWE superstar Cody Rhodes, and Dave Bautista just to name a few.
Conclusion
All-in-all, I was very surprised by how satisfying and how funny The Naked Gun (2025) was. A fitting entry and soft reboot of the franchise, this film comes with my highest recommendation!