Director Akiva Schaffer delivers the unlikeliest of accomplishments; a hilarious legacy sequel to a 31 year film
When I think of the Naked Gun, I instantly think of Leslie Nielsen, the straight as arrow actor who made his name playing serious roles in classic films like FORBIDDEN PLANET or CREEPSHOW and reinvented himself by parodying that straight man image in the classic Zucker/Abrahams disaster film parody film AIRPLANE! This was a schtick that largely seemed something that would remain exclusive to Nielsen for the rest of his career, as he kept doing films that largely played off of this image like DRACULA: DEAD AND LOVING IT and REPOSSESSED. But for many growing up in the 90’s, Nielsen’s role as Frank Drebin in THE NAKED GUN series is what he is mainly known for, a deadly literal straight man to the nth degree where the ridiculousness of the surroundings makes for a laugh a minute scenario. The NAKED GUN films parodied spy and procedural films, literally taking the exact plot of other films to point out the silliness of the film outside the context of the franchise and its fandom.
2025’s NAKED GUN succeeds by largely following this playbook. The straight man in this film is Liam Neeson who has become known for the last 20 years for playing deadly serious characters since TAKEN in films like THE GREY. Because he hasn’t done much comedy outside of funny cameos in FAMILY GUY or cameos in TED, he is able to fairly seamlessly step into the mold of Leslie Nielsen, here playing the son of Nielsen’s Drebin. Most of the stars of the original franchise have passed on, which gives Schaffer a caret blanche to make this a sequel/reboot with Paul Walter Hauser playing the son of George Kennedy’s Ed as Neeson’s sidekick. Here, the plot largely aspes that of Matthew Vaughn’s KINGSMAN, where Tony Huston plays a billionaire who wants to reclaim the Earth with a signal sent by cellphones through his P.L.O.T. device that will make people rage and kill each other and afterwards he and his chosen will reclaim the world. The inventor of the P.L.O.T. Device is killed and his sister, played by Pamela Anderson, looks to Neeson’s Police Squad for help.
Honestly, revealing more than this seems like a spoiler, but the film is shockingly funny, with laugh a minute jokes aimed at the Gen X/Millenials who grew up with this film series. It’s a throwback to 90’s parody films that you don’t see anymore. Big screen comedies that aim at broad humor are very rare nowadays and Paramount should be commended for not sending this to streaming like they did with other films in their catalog like they did with Coming 2 America in 2021. It’s a fun movie that had me laughing aloud multiple times and there’s something great about laughing with a crowd full of people in a theater that is amazing. The cast has great chemistry and its nice to see a silly dumb fun film like this in a theater which was a rare and great experience. Check out THE NAKED GUN in theaters this weekend.
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THE NAKED GUN (2025)
★★ /★ of ★★★★★ stars
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