You’re probably familiar. But in case you’re not, back in 1982, relatively fresh off the success of Airplane!, creators Jerry Zucker, David Zucker, and Jim Abrahams (ZAZ, for short) pivoted to TV with the short-lived cop show parody Police Squad. It starred newly-minted comedy presence Leslie Nielsen (who’d previously been known mostly for “serious” parts) as Lieutenant Frank Drebin, a sometimes bumbling but always dedicated cop. Of course, the whole thing was shot through with the ZAZ boys’ then-unique brand of humor: snippets of dialogue taken literally, endless fourth-wall-breaking meta-jokes, sophomoric silliness, and out-and-out non sequiturs. For whatever reason, the show failed to catch on, but in 1988, the premise was resurrected for The Naked Gun, a film that is roundly considered a classic of its subgenre and which spawned two more sequels of relatively diminishing returns.
Fast-forward to 2025, and that style of comedy has mostly been extinguished, both as audiences’ preferences have changed and because of a proliferation of all manner of indebted scattershot humor on television and on the Internet. But that’s not to say that it’s still not pretty funny when one comes across it. So here we have a new The Naked Gun, this one from one of the Lonely Island boys (director Akiva Schaffer) and producer Seth MacFarlane. Nielsen obviously isn’t in this one, RIP, but our new Frank Drebin is the old one’s son, Frank Drebin, played by Liam Neeson, whose casting — at least on paper — is utterly inspired. He’s on the case of a mysterious car accident that turns out to be a murder, part of an attempt to cover up the nefarious plans of a scheming tech billionaire (Danny Huston) who wants to bring about an apocalypse so that a like-minded superior class can reclaim the Earth. He’s also joined by the murdered guy’s sister (Pamela Anderson), who, of course, begins a romance with Frank.
This sort of thing is basically review-proof. There is only one question worth asking, whether critic or viewer: is it funny? The answer in this particular case is, yeah, more or less. The original series and — let’s be a little charitable here — at least the first film are seriously joke-dense, with gags in the dialogue, background, and music, all of them constantly flying at you. If you don’t get one, or it doesn’t land, or you don’t even notice, don’t worry — the formula dictates that the next five jokes are already happening. This new Naked Gun doesn’t nearly rise to that tier of quantity, but what is here is generally pretty sturdy laugh material. And importantly, the whole thing isn’t just built on repeated gags from the old days (although there are certainly some of those). Instead, there’s a bit more focus on just general stupidity in this 2025 iteration, and there’s more than enough patented, pure Lonely Island madness, as in an extended sequence involving a magic snowman, for instance.
Neeson, in particular, is, more than just on paper, perfectly cast. It’s an obvious take to suggest that this guy, who has largely spent the past 20 years flexing and refining his particular set of skills in very portentous DTV action movies, is the ideal one to pick up Nielsen’s mantle, but some clichés are the case because they’re true. The actor possesses the perfect deadpan, and his deep seriousness deployed to intimidating effect in thrillers is here a true comedic asset when Frank is asked to get tough with some punks. Could this Naked Gun be funnier than it ultimately ends up? Of course. But for fans of this style of humor, there’s still more than enough to keep one busy with earned laughs, and Schaffer smartly keeps the entire thing to a brisk 85 minutes, including closing credits. A brief dose of buffoonery is a small mercy in this age of the overstuffed and concept-heavy studio comedy.
DIRECTOR: Akiva Schaffer; CAST: Liam Neeson, Pamela Anderson, Paul Walter Hauser, CCH Pounder; DISTRIBUTOR: Paramount Pictures; IN THEATERS: August 1; RUNTIME: 1 hr. 25 min.
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