The studio comedy has been waning in popularity ever since the streaming boom began. COVID-19 felt like the final nail in the coffin. If you wanted to laugh along to a movie, you were going to do it in the privacy of your own home, courtesy of one of a hundred Netflix originals that come out every year and have a cultural relevancy shelf life of approximately five days. The theatrical comedy is important because, like a great horror movie, a good crowd elevates the experience. We’ve been starved of a straightforward, gag-heavy movie that is unafraid to be sincere in its stupidity, which is why The Naked Gun, against all odds, might just be the most important movie of the year.
Liam Neeson portrays Frank Drebin Jr., the son of the lead character from The Naked Gun films that released in the late ‘80s and early ‘90s, played by the late Leslie Nielsen. Neeson is joined by Paul Walter Houser as his partner and Pamela Anderson as Beth Davenport, a love interest with a close relationship to Drebin’s case.
The Naked Gun is directed by Akiva Schaffer. Known primarily for his collaborations with The Lonely Island (alongside Andy Samberg and Jorma Taccone), Schaffer built a career off of popular digital shorts on Saturday Night Live and eventually went on to make two big movies with his Lonely Island collaborators: Hot Rod and Popstar. These rank among the funniest movies of their respective decades, making Schaffer a perfect fit for a 2020s comedy that desperately needed to not take itself seriously.
Nearly every scene is populated with visual gags, non-sequiturs, and clever subversions of modern action films. With the original Naked Gun taking aim at the police procedurals of its time (Dirty Harry and the like), this reboot wisely steers clear from overt commentary about the idea of making a legacy sequel and instead sticks to satirizing the films of this era. Cop thrillers are not as “in” right now, but the tropes are well enough established that they still work in 2025. When the more plot-heavy elements come in (like, say, a MacGuffin literally called the P.L.O.T. Device), they also draw inspiration from films like Kingsman or the later Mission: Impossible sequels.
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Neeson, not cast only for his nominative similarity to Nielsen, delivers a hilariously deadpan, pitch-perfect performance as Drebin. There is a world where casting someone who has truly been cemented as an action star in his own right would hurt the comedic sensibilities of this movie, perhaps making it too obvious or too much of a self-parody. Neeson avoids this because Drebin does not feel at all like any of the variety of vigilantes or special agents he’s played since the incredible success of Taken reshaped his career. Unaware of his ineptitude, Neeson’s Drebin is a straight shooter who never doubts himself despite always doing the wrong thing.
Anderson is a highlight, in a role that allows her to show off a radiant charm while also being legitimately funny. She is not resigned to playing a stale love interest, because everyone in this movie gets to be in on the joke. Their onscreen romance is as silly as it is truly sweet. One of the great benefits of the casting is that their chemistry actually invests you in this totally absurd romance subplot, giving way to an uproarious montage of their love blooming with the help of a magical snowman.
The Naked Gun is a blast. At only 85 minutes and jam-packed with jokes, you will scarcely feel a second wasted. The few low points of the movie evoke a more action-heavy production, with brief but shoddy instances of poor CGI and fight choreography that don’t satirize bad action as much as they simply perpetuate the truth that movies don’t often look as good today as they did thirty years ago. But these rare moments are shaken off quickly when the scenes that follow deliver so many jokes you’ll be struggling to pick a favorite.
Comedy is a vital part of the theatrical experience. With the increasing popularity of subgenres under the action umbrella, especially superhero films, we have seen theaters have less room for true, out and out comedies. Our comedies are now action movies in disguise, prioritizing spectacle over jokes because it has been decided that only movies with major VFX work and fantastical characters deserve the big screen treatment. This is the exact opposite, a comedy disguised as an action movie, albeit an intentionally poor one. And it is proof, more than any movie this decade, that people desperately need these kinds of films in theaters. The Naked Gun is one of the funniest movies in years, don’t miss the chance to see it with a crowd.
7 out of 10
The Naked Gun is in theaters now.
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This article appears in Aug 1-31, 2025.