The Naked Gun (2025)
Directed by: Akiva Schaffer
Premise: A remake of the 1991 film. Detective Frank Drebin Jr. (Liam Neeson) investigates a traffic death linked to a tech mogul (Danny Huston).
What Works: 2025’s The Naked Gun is both a remake and a legacy sequel. Most of the original cast are now dead but the 2025 movie exists in continuity with the earlier films and the new characters are presented as the next generation of Police Squad. The filmmakers clearly appreciate the earlier movies and the new Naked Gun continues its spirit. This version of The Naked Gun was co-written and directed by Akiva Schafer who was part of the comedy group The Lonely Island and the film was produced by Seth MacFarlane who created Family Guy. The humor of The Naked Gun is consistent with those works and it ought to entertain their fans. The filmmakers are out to make us laugh and they succeed. One of the outstanding qualities of 2025’s The Naked Gun is the density of the jokes. The filmmakers stack one gag on top of another and the rapid succession of physical comedy and one-liners keeps us laughing. Even the end credits include text jokes worked into the crawl. The Naked Gun succeeds in large part due to the casting of Liam Neeson as Detective Frank Drebin Jr. and Pamela Anderson as the femme fatale. Much like Leslie Nielsen before him, Neeson plays it straight and his tone becomes part of the joke. Anderson is also very funny with great comic timing and a willingness to be ridiculous.
What Doesn’t: The quality of the humor in The Naked Gun varies considerably. The filmmakers throw everything they’ve got at the screen and most of it sticks but some of it doesn’t. The sheer density of jokes in The Naked Gun mostly makes up for their inconsistency. However, the film loses some of its comic momentum in the end. Despite running only eighty-five minutes, the picture feels a bit exhausted. That’s partly because the dramatic concept is big and overcomplicated for this story. The original Naked Gun was a parody of hardboiled detective fiction. Casting Liam Neeson in the remake is a brilliant way of reimagining the material, given Neeson’s decades long career in shoot-’em-up action movies. However, 2025’s The Naked Gun is split between the original film’s influences and Neeson’s action movie oeuvre. The classic detective moments are funny but anachronistic whereas the contemporary action film parody is muted and not as cutting as it could be.
Bottom Line: The Naked Gun is delightfully silly and worthy of its predecessor. It feels a little overextended but the filmmakers keep us laughing with an onslaught of jokes and the performances by Liam Neeson and Pamela Anderson.
Episode: #1062 (August 24, 2025)