Movie Review: “The Naked Gun” Brings Back a Type of Laughter Not Seen in Years
Like many 12-year-old boys of my generation, The Naked Gun franchise was pure comedic gold. The perfect blend of juvenile absurdity and just enough adult innuendo, it served as a gateway drug into the broader world of comedy. It was the kind of movie that made sleepovers legendary. Paired with other ZAZ masterpieces like Airplane!, these films were the bedrock of our early cinematic sense of humor—relentless gags, visual chaos, and a wink to the audience without ever breaking character.
Spoofs didn’t go away, but the genre started to shift. The once-golden parody crown passed to increasingly desperate successors—films filled with pop culture potshots and a rotating cast of SNL alums. It felt like something essential had been lost.
Enter The Naked Gun (2025), a reboot that faces the impossible challenge every legacy sequel must confront: how do you honor a classic while justifying your own existence? Liam Neeson’s Frank Drebin Jr. puts it best as he solemnly tells his father’s portrait, the film needs to “try to be different and original, at the same time being exactly the same." Thankfully, it pulls it off more often than not.
Let’s be clear: nothing will ever fully replicate the lightning-in-a-bottle magic of the original films, especially for those of us who grew up quoting them by heart. But this reboot captures the spirit—the tone, the rhythm, the sheer commitment to the bit. It’s a loving throwback, packed with gags that feel delightfully analog in a digital age.
The movie wisely avoids leaning on current pop culture trends that would age it instantly. Instead, it draws on references with proven staying power—Sex and the City, the Black Eyed Peas, and yes, even TiVo. (One joke feels so TiVo-era that it might’ve come from a dusty 2006 screenplay draft, but it somehow still works.) And when the film takes a jab at Disney Adults, I laughed so hard I felt personally attacked. It was clear: this movie was made for people like me.
Liam Neeson is pitch-perfect as Drebin Jr. Just as Leslie Nielsen did decades ago, Neeson uses his gravitas to play every ridiculous line with Shakespearean sincerity. He’s not winking. He’s not in on the joke. And that’s what makes it hilarious.
The film’s biggest surprise? Pamela Anderson. As femme fatale Beth Davenport, she brings more than just glamour—she brings genuinely sharp comedic instincts. She gets the tone. She plays it straight. And she earns her laughs. The rest of the cast follows suit, resisting the temptation to mug for the camera and instead honoring the ZAZ tradition: play it like it's Hamlet, even if you’re slipping on a banana peel.
But beyond the gags and the nostalgia, what hit me most was the feeling of being in a theater filled with people laughing. I hadn’t realized how much I missed that. In a landscape dominated by superhero fatigue and horror franchises, The Naked Gun reminded me how rare—and special—it is to watch a film designed simply to be silly. It’s communal. It’s joyful. It’s fun.
Will this film change the comedy landscape? Probably not. But if it paves the way for more theatrical comedies that are proudly, unapologetically absurd, that’s a win. I hope it finds its audience. I hope we get more.
I give The Naked Gun a solid 4⅓ stars out of 5. Not because it’s perfect, but because it brought me back to a kind of laughter I didn’t know I missed.