THE NAKED GUN movie poster | ©2025 Paramount Pictures

Rating: PG-13
Stars: Liam Neeson, Pamela Anderson, Paul Walter Hauser, Danny Huston, Kevin Durand, CCH Pounder
Writers: Dan Gregor & Doug Mand & Akiva Schaffer
Director: Akiva Schaffer
Distributor: Paramount
Release Date: August 1, 2025

As the saying goes, comedy is hard. As a less concise saying might go, comedy honoring a previous comedy that was released thirty-seven years ago, in the style of that earlier film but still funny for modern audiences, is harder.

Rather remarkably, the new iteration of THE NAKED GUN – not a remake, but rather a sequel to the earlier films – mostly succeeds. In place of hilariously stone-faced Leslie Nielsen as Detective Lt. Frank Drebin of the Police Squad, we have Liam Neeson as his son, Detective Lt. Frank Drebin Jr., also of the Police Squad.

The plot of the script by Dan Gregor & Doug Mand & Akiva Schaffer, who directed, revolves around Frank’s efforts to get to the bottom of a plan by an evil techno-billionaire (Danny Huston), who has invented a device that will allow him to take over the world.

This proves as good a framework as any for the nonstop gags, visual and verbal, that flow through THE NAKED GUN with blessedly little visible effort. The filmmakers largely capture the rhythm of the older films without seeming creaky. If the bit in the trailer with the little girl didn’t amuse you, the McGuffin that the bank robbers are after likely will, and the movie moves to surer footing after that.

Neeson doesn’t have quite the same background going for him as Nielsen did in terms of this specific material. Back in the ‘70s and ‘80s, the police and airplane disaster fare that Nielsen starred in before becoming a comedy superstar were deadly serious, in ways that would come across as parody now. The contrast between not only Nielsen’s grim delivery but his history of playing lots of grim authority figures contrasted with Drebin’s absurd actions was part of the joke.

Neeson has played lots of guys with a very particular set of skills, but they got to crack a few jokes while cracking heads. Neeson can project sternness, but he doesn’t come with a rod-up-his-rear pedigree. Consequently, his Frank Jr. is absolutely earnest, but a sweeter and more innocent than Frank Sr. It’s a slightly different approach but it fits well in these surroundings.

Neeson is ably backed up by not only Huston, who embodies the self-infatuated rich man trope to the hilt, but Pamela Anderson as a novelist out for revenge, Paul Walter Hauser as Frank’s sidekick (and son of George Kennedy’s Captain Ed Hocken from the original NAKED GUN franchise), CCH Pounder as Frank’s exasperated captain, Kevin Durand as a hitman, and a generally great supporting cast, with a few impactful cameos.

Director Schaffer establishes a consistent tone and maintains it throughout. He and his colleagues come up with all sorts of delightful weirdness, including a romantic montage that doubles as a crazy horror short. Additionally, there’s a sequence so pointed that describing it to people who profess no interest in seeing the movie sends them into fits of guffaws just hearing about it.

THE NAKED GUN faithfully replicates the essence of its namesake while standing up well in its own right. It earns its plentiful laughs honestly.

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