The Naked Gun (2025): A Review

THE NAKED GUN

Leslie Nielsen was seen as a purely dramatic actor until he appeared in Airplane! where his deadpan manner made things funnier. The television series spoof Police Squad! and its film adaptation The Naked Gun cemented Nielsen's status as a comic actor to where I think people only saw him as that. I think that people soon could not see the forest for the trees when it came to Nielsen, opting to pigeonhole him to spoofs when he could have done more. With the revived The Naked Gun, it seems to try and want to do with Liam Neeson what the first Naked Gun did for Nielsen. More light chuckles than straight-out howlfest, The Naked Gun is mercifully short but not as funny as its predecessors.

Detective Frank Drebin, Jr. (Neeson) foils a bank robbery by disguising himself as a child. Unfortunately, his actions end up creating chaos and he is reassigned to a car accident where foul play is suspected. Alongside his partner, Ed Hocken, Jr. (Paul Walter Houser), Drebin seems fine to let the accident that killed software engineer Simon Davenport be reported as a suicide. Drebin does, however, find a matchbook that he finds curious. One person who won't accept that Simon's death was a suicide is his sister, Beth (Pamela Anderson). Beth, a crime novelist, suspects that it is murder. She suspects that Simon's death is connected to his employer, tech billionaire Richard Cane (Danny Huston). 

She is not far off, for Cane is involved. He is also involved in the bank robbery, where we find that a Plot Device was stolen. This Plot Device is part of Cane's nefarious scheme to go all Doctor Strangelove on the world. Frank Drebin, Jr. and Beth soon become thorns in Cane's side. Frank and Beth, who have fallen in love, now must join forces against both Cane and killer snowmen. Will they be able to stop Citizen Cane's wicked scheme? 

The Naked Gun runs 85 minutes long. I'm honestly surprised that it ran that long at all. It is more surprising to learn that the original also ran 85 minutes long. Perhaps another time I will compare the original with this sequel/reboot. For now, as I look at the 2025 Naked Gun, I find that it is...fine. 

The film, written by Dan Gregor, Doug Mand and director Akiva Schaffer, had some amusing bits and sight gags. One of The Naked Gun's greatest elements is in how it takes literal bits to make humorous moments and puns. The original had those in spades, where it threw endless gags and puns visual and verbal at you. Here though, they did not feel that funny. I thought the idea of opening the film with a literal PLOT Device was at least amusing. That "Primordial Law of Toughness" was the meaning of PLOT in "PLOT Device" felt as if it came from a more standard comedy. It might have done better if no one ever commented on what if anything "PLOT" meant. It would be just that: a literal "PLOT Device" and nothing more. 

Over and over, I thought that everyone involved with The Naked Gun was trying to be funny. I would even say that they were attempting to ratch up the humor a few notches. It just felt forced to me. When Frank Drebin, Jr. ends up framing himself, it could have been funny. Neeson gave it his all to try and make it so. For example, he finds a note telling him to pick up a tape recorder and say, "I did it" and he does exactly that. However, it played as if everyone knew that it was "funny", which in turn ended up making it not hilarious but labored.

Even for something as short as The Naked Gun, the scene with the killer snowman never felt funny even without its world. It looked like outtakes from Jack Frost. 

The thing about comedy, particularly something in the Naked Gun style, is that no one is supposed to play it as if they are aware that they are in a comedy. Some of the best comedies from Some Like It Hot to National Lampoon's Animal House to the original Naked Gun play their scenarios perfectly straight. I never got the sense that such was the case here. Instead, I got the sense that everyone knew that The Naked Gun was supposed to be a comedy. 

Again, there were funny moments. I thought, for example, that poor Ed Hocken, Jr. handing out free beers to everyone no questions asked, even a child, was amusing. There is a quick bit where he is sharing beer with children, which I did smile at. However, this bit had little buildup. It happened because someone thought it would be hilarious. It was, fine.

The same can be said for the performances. I think Liam Neeson took on this role because it would be a nice way to play against his own second persona as a tough action star. Once, Liam Neeson was seen as a serious dramatic actor, culminating with his Oscar-nominated turn in Schindler's List. Once he appeared in Taken, Neeson was transformed into an action star, where he has been for close to twenty years. I think Neeson as I said gave it his all to make Frank Drebin, Jr. into this bumbling moron. However, I never got the sense that Neeson could make himself into the bumbling moron his character needed to be. In a curious criticism, Liam Neeson seemed too smart to play dumb. 

The same can be said for both Pamela Anderson as our femme fatale and Danny Huston as our evil villain. I think that they tried. They worked to make themselves funny. The problem, again, is that everyone seemed to want to be smarter than the material. I did not laugh at Anderson's Beth attempting bad scatting at the nightclub. I never had any interest in Huston's Cane's plans for unleashing chaos.

As a side note, you couldn't have made one "Citizen Cane" quip or "Cane" related pun? 

I know that there are people who report to laughing nonstop at The Naked Gun. Yes, there were bits that were amusing. However, I was not falling down laughing. It was fine. It was barely passable. The Naked Gun is not up to the original's legacy. 

DECISION: C+