'The Naked Gun' Review: Liam Neeson-led Reboot Locks and Loads a Laugh Riot
David Zucker’s The Naked Gun is one of those iconic comedies that I’m ashamed to have not seen until recently. I know, I'm a bad comedy cinephile. Lock me up and throw away the key. The only frames of reference I had for Zucker were Scary Movie 3 and BASEketball. Upon first watching, it hit me that the Family Guy episode "PTV" spoofed its intro. That might as well have been Seth MacFarlane manifesting, considering that he and his Fuzzy Door production company armed themselves with a revival fitted for and helmed by Akiva Schaffer (aka Kiv, for Lonely Island heads like me). I may not be a Zucker connoisseur, but I was raised on that Lonely Island. Following the spirit of Zucker's original and Schaffer's prior works (Hot Rod and Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping), the Liam Neeson-led Naked Gun locks and loads an 85-minute laugh riot.
Image copyright (©) Courtesy of Paramount Pictures
MPA Rating: PG-13 (for crude/sexual material, violence/bloody images, and brief partial nudity)
Runtime: 1 Hour and 25 Minutes
Production Companies: Domain Entertainment, Fuzzy Door Productions
Distributor: Paramount Pictures
Director: Akiva Schaffer
Writers: Dan Gregor, Doug Mand, Akiva Schaffer
Cast: Liam Neeson, Pamela Anderson, Paul Walter Hauser, Kevin Durand, Danny Huston
Release Date: August 1, 2025
Detective Frank Drebin Jr. (Liam Neeson) of the LA police squad division must solve the mystery behind a murder. His investigation points to rich, tech-hyphenate Richard Cane (Danny Huston) and Beth (Pamela Anderson), a true crime novelist and the murder victim's sister. With the world at stake and his captain (CCH Pounder) down his neck, it's up to Drebin Jr., Ed Hocken Jr. (Paul Walter Hauser), and the rest of the Police Squad to dish out some justice.
Liam Neeson cops the comedic performance of his career.
Liam Neeson's cameo as a guy trying to buy a box of Trix in the style of Taken's Bryan Mills was one of the funniest parts of the forgettable Ted 2. To me, that was his audition to captain the Naked Gun revival. MacFarlane saw the vision in that moment, and that foresight brought us Neeson in what may be a comedic career best. In contrast to Leslie Nielsen, there's a layer of delight to Neeson's portrayal, as he's become such a dad-zoned action star with an aura of absurdist comedy that allows this iteration to stand on its own. Like a reverse Uno card to the Bryan Cranston or Bob Odenkirk effect – where the silly guy turns into a tough guy – Neeson's rugged facade, often used as a catalyst for action, is turned in for comedy, and he operates in a delightfully silly mode throughout. Neeson sells even the wittiest of gags, mixing a casual nonchalance with the absurdities that either he causes or that surround him.
Although Paul Walter Hauser and CCH Pounder, two of the film's supporting actors, are hilarious, Pamela Anderson, straight off the electricity of her remarkable comeback performance in The Last Showgirl, is the star of the show throughout. Anderson's portrayal of Beth, the love interest, is delightful. She exhibits her comedic abilities and excels as a silly, over-the-top foil to Drebin's deadpan humor. She amuses in her portrayal of a femme fatale with such effortless silliness. It has me going, man. Imagine all these roles Anderson could've had in comedies throughout the years before her return, because she's so damn funny and shares great chemistry with Neeson. I want to see her in more comedic roles in the future.
Oh, it's good to laugh at something so silly and stupid for the sake of it again.
Early in the modernized The Naked Gun, the film delivers its mission statement in a tongue-in-cheek joke where Drebin Jr. says to a framed picture of his father that he wants to be exactly like him, but also be his own thing. In most cases, Kiv and co-writers Dan Gregor and Doug Mand (Chip 'n Dale: Rescue Rangers) manage to do exactly that. It actively captures the original film's spirit by being relentless with its joke ratio and taking much of its narrative structure and noir style and texturing it with a modern coat of paint. For instance, they update the comedic romance montage, and a wrestling match now serves as the climax. Their take on it works since they get a lot of mileage out of the jokes that are thrown at the audience in every frame.
Each scene is brimming with sight gags, slapstick, wordplay, and every wacky joke imaginable, and the majority of them land with such precision that it feels as though you’ve been shot right in the funny bone. I crawled out of the theater with a fractured ribcage because of how much I guffawed throughout. In a time when the landscape of comedy tries to push a meta-agenda – because it made Ryan Reynolds bank and everyone took the wrong message from it – it's refreshing to see a studio comedy less concerned with fourth-wall-breaking and more about how many jokes can be squeezed into every frame. It warrants repeat viewing because it contains so many jokes that you’ll miss dialogue while laughing too hard.
Through The Naked Gun, Kiv harkens back to his Hot Rod days by playing up its PG-13 rating while upholding the same short runtime as the original (and most of his works). Meanwhile, Kiv flexes his upgraded filmmaking skills. He and DP Brandon Trost pour immense detail into the gags while texturing the imagery and cues of the genres they're satirizing, particularly noir. There are ample scenes of Pamela Anderson looking as glamorous as she did in the ‘90s through her framing as the femme fatale.
Besides retexturing the source material, the film spoofs spy flicks from the past decade. Richard Cane's plan is similar to Samuel L. Jackson's in Kingsman and gags rooted in Mission Impossible: Fallout. There are also inadvertent references to the aughts era that pleasantly surprised me and serve as a humorous means of capturing the essence of nostalgia. For God's sake, I recently watched Tropic Thunder for the first time, where part of the funniest running gags were TiVo. The Naked Gun has a big gag surrounding TiVo in the year of our Lord 2025, and it's so damn funny.
Not every joke lands, of course. There are several moments where an attempt at a humorous joke falls flat or becomes long-winded to its detriment.
FINAL STATEMENT
Exuding a strong "they just don't make ‘em like this anymore" energy through its intelligent demonstration in nonsensical comedy combined with a short runtime and stellar comedic turns from Liam Neeson and Pamela Anderson, Kiv's The Naked Gun is a crowd-pleasing comedy that’s so dumb, it's brilliant.
