By 
Over 30 years after The Naked Gun 33⅓, a risky comic resurrection is now playing at your local theater. In an age of genre-bending comedy hybrids (see The Fall Guy, meh) and niche, catered offerings (see Friendship, loved), the traditional studio comedy has basically vanished. What used to be a regular fixture at the cineplex is now nearly extinct. The new Naked Gun isn’t just trying to revive that format; it’s a full-on throwback to a time when comedies weren’t afraid to be stupid, loud, and singularly focused on laughs. And while this movie is definitely all of those things, it’s also just plain funny. That Liam Neeson, now tragically deep into his post-Taken run of stoic, violent men with a particular set of skills, is anchoring one of the most laugh-dense movies in years feels like a joke in itself. But somehow, it lands.
Rather than lazily recycling the original films starring the inimitable Leslie Nielsen, this version from writer-director Akiva Schaffer (Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping, Hot Rod), of The Lonely Island fame, pays tribute to the original trilogy and that era of comedy filmmaking in both tone and spirit. Neeson plays Frank Drebin Jr., son of the original bumbling detective, and brings the same “even a broken clock is right twice a day” energy. It isn’t a beat-for-beat redo, and thankfully it avoids becoming a greatest hits collection of past successes. Instead, it leans hard into the kind of nonsense energy that made the originals such dumb fun while updating the references and sharpening the craft. Schaffer’s Naked Gun is zany, absurd, and never lets logic, physics, or good taste get in the way of a punchline. It’s incredibly dumb, but mostly in a good way. Most of the jokes earn a smirk, some deliver real laughs, and at least a couple had me wiping away tears of joyous laughter. I honestly can’t remember the last time that happened in a theater, but it’s been a while. Comedies, like horror films, are best experienced in the communal church of the theater. That kind of collective laughter—the kind that rolls through the room, builds on itself, and becomes its own feedback loop—is rare these days. But when it happens, it’s magic. The howling audience only made the film’s dumb charm hit harder. By the end, I wasn’t just laughing at the movie. I was laughing with the crowd, totally won over.
[READ MORE: Our review of ‘Friendship‘ directed by Andrew DeYoung and starring Tim Robinson]
As a pure, capital-C Comedy, this is easily one of the strongest in years, if only for the sheer effort. And while some of the material definitely lands with a clunk, the movie moves so fast you barely have time to sit with your distaste before it’s on to the next bit. Clocking in at a breezy, barely-80 minutes, Schaffer’s film doesn’t waste time with anything that doesn’t have a shot at being funny. There’s no parade of unnecessary cameos, no prestige aspirations, no characters learning anything or discovering themselves, and no grand statement about the human condition. Just jokes, scene after scene. Going in, I honestly expected that to be painful or exhausting. Instead, the longer it went on, the more I found myself locked into its wavelength. It doesn’t wear you down the way some try-hard comedies do. It builds momentum and wrestles you onboard its absurdist vector. By the end, I had completely adjusted to its nonstop rhythm of comic maximalism and was fully along for the ride.
That kind of clarity of purpose is rare now. Most modern comedies are afraid to just be comedies. Terrified even. In a post-Apatow and Pineapple Express world, PG-13 comedies needed to be four-quadrant tentpoles, with ballooning budgets and major star power. They couldn’t just exist to make you laugh, they also need to double as action movies with a bit of romance, drama, and an auteur-ish twist. Then, somewhere along the way, someone remembers to toss in a few jokes so it still counts as comedy. This movie is the opposite. Every single minute is designed to make you laugh. Not everything lands. Some jokes are stupid. Others are gross. A few are so juvenile they might make you question your own maturity for snickering. But the sheer volume and variety of gags—verbal, visual, slapstick, surreal—come so fast and so often that it’s nearly impossible not to laugh at something. It feels much closer to the older generation of spoof films (think Airplane!), back when they weren’t just strung-together pop culture references or shot-for-shot movie parodies. There’s even a whiff of classic British farce hidden beneath the dick jokes and diarrhea gags, a weird sort of elegance tucked inside the scatological mess.
The story barely matters, but it’s coherent enough to do the job. Danny Huston plays Richard Cane, a tech mogul who’s stolen a MacGuffin—literally called the P.L.O.T. Device—during an opening bank robbery that, ironically, features one of the film’s weaker attempts at absurdist physical comedy. He plans to reshape the world into some idealized, rebooted version of itself. Or, to put it simply, the billionaire wants to make America great again. Neeson’s Frank is an old-school, “shoot first and ask questions eventually” kind of cop, who slowly begins to connect the dots between the robbery and a suspicious vehicular “suicide” involving one of Cane’s employees. He’s joined by the victim’s sister Beth, played by a surprisingly dialed-in Pamela Anderson, and his partner Ed, played with low-key charm by Paul Walter Hauser. Together, they try to unravel Cane’s plan before things go sideways. Standing in Frank’s way is Chief Davis (CCH Pounder), his perpetually unimpressed superior who seems one mess up away from suspending him entirely. The plot is mostly just scaffolding for the gags, but it’s enough narrative glue to keep things moving and keep you loosely invested.
As for Neeson, his serious, deadpan delivery makes him the perfect straight-man anchor in a sea of churlish chaos. He never winks. He just barrels through the absurdity without so much as a pause, and it works beautifully. While no one can ever replicate Leslie Nielsen’s singular comic wavelength, Neeson comes surprisingly close. He’s inspired casting, and he carries the mantle with unexpected skill. Pamela Anderson is also kind of fantastic. Her timing is sharp, she knows exactly what kind of movie she’s in, and her chemistry with Neeson is far better than some more high-profile recent rom-com pairings. Honestly, it very well might be her best role ever. It should absolutely set her up for more work in this very specific comedic lane, if only there were more like it. Like Neeson, it turns out she also has a very particular set of skills. That some of the film’s funniest moments involve maybe bestiality or an enchanted snowman only work because of the strange, undeniable humanity between these two performers doing something they’ve never really done before: pure unadulterated comedy. Seriously, ship these two. Make two more of these movies while you’re at it. The world needs fewer caped crusaders and a hell of a lot more belly laughs.
CONCLUSION: Spoof comedy is back, and the unlikely team of writer-director Akiva Schaffer with stars Liam Neeson and Pamela Anderson might just be the chaotic salve modern comedy desperately needed. By singularly focusing on delivering as many laughs as possible—many of them very, very dumb—’The Naked Gun’ pulls no punches. It honors the original while making room for a new version of this kind of comedy to exist again. I laughed a lot.
B
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