Let’s not joke around: The Naked Gun (2025) is the most raucously funny movie of the year. It just might be the most hilarious movie of the last few years, too. If you’ve been following its excellent marketing campaign, you’re probably hoping to laugh your head off in the theater, and that experience is exactly what The Naked Gun delivers. Make no mistake; the jokes are king here. This isn’t some maudlin legacy sequel looking to cash in on nostalgia. Nor is it a lazy resurrection of IP, pandering to a pre-existing fan base. It certainly isn’t an action comedy looking to equally serve both genres, either. The entire point is to be stupid funny, emphasis on both words.
Now, let’s pivot and get a little more intellectual about a movie where its climactic action sequence features an owl pooping on the bad guy. A narrative has formed around The Naked Gun that it’s “bringing back” the studio comedy, and that’s not strictly true. There have been wonderful studio comedies in the last couple of years, such as No Hard Feelings (2023) and The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent (2022). The issue is that the majority of these films either failed to attract viewers or were dumped on streaming services.
In other words, people have come to think of comedy as disposable. But 2025’s The Naked Gun reboot is proof that comedy remains vital to our cinematic diet and doesn’t need to reinvent the genre to be relevant.
There’s a New Lieutenant in Town
Most legacy sequels make a meal out of conceiving ways to bring back old characters while paving the way for new ones, and attempt to balance homages to the original films with fresh approaches. The Naked Gun series has a built-in irreverence that allows all of that to gleefully fall by the wayside. Instead of a belabored origin story for Lt. Frank Drebin Jr. (Liam Neeson), writer-director Akiva Schaffer gets away with simply letting the audience know that he’s the son of Leslie Nielsen’s Drebin from the original Naked Gun trilogy. With that, we plunge right into Drebin Jr.’s latest case, which literally involves a plot device (a MacGuffin bit of tech that uses P.L.O.T. as an acronym).
Drebin is investigating both a bank robbery where the P.L.O.T. device was stolen and the mysterious death of a man whose sister, Beth Davenport (Pamela Anderson), is convinced was actually murder, committed by the shady tech billionaire Richard Cane (Danny Huston). Cane is indeed bad news, and plans to use the P.L.O.T. to send the world into chaos as he and his fellow elites hide out in a luxury bunker. Drebin is the spitting image of his father, a well-meaning rogue cop who’s a mixture of lethal weapon and bumbling idiot. As he tries to bring the perps to justice and avoids the ire of his long-suffering Chief (CCH Pounder), Drebin finds himself and Beth mutually falling in love.
Liam Neeson Delivers His Funniest Comedic Performance to Date
It can’t be overstated what an incredible gift Liam Neeson is to The Naked Gun. Truthfully, the film wouldn’t work without him in multiple ways. This is far from Neeson’s first foray into comedy. Not only has he appeared in projects like Anchorman 2 (2013) and The Lego Movie (2014), but he has also worked with Naked Gun producer Seth MacFarlane (Family Guy, Ted) on several past occasions. Yet, Neeson’s performance as Drebin Jr. is so indelible that it feels like we’re barely discovering his comedic chops for the first time. It’s a turn as revelatory as his appearance in the first Taken (2008).
Courtesy of Paramount
In the same way Taken launched a new phase of Liam Neeson’s career as an action icon, The Naked Gun might send him deep into the world of comedy for years to come. The rest of the cast match Neeson’s silly energy. Pamela Anderson (The Last Showgirl), in particular, is given a wealth of great material, making her as reliable a goofy comedienne as she is a trusted romantic lead. Danny Huston (Yellowstone) and Paul Walter Hauser (Black Bird) make for great straight men. Finally, Kevin Durand (Abigail) emerges as a stealth MVP as Sig, a henchman who is perhaps a little too vain. The one detriment to the ensemble is that some players are vastly underused.
A New Akiva Schaffer Classic
Akiva Schaffer’s filmmaking prowess is long overdue for recognition. Although he’s been praised for his contributions as a member of The Lonely Island, he’s also made two comedies that have stood the test of time: Hot Rod (2007) and Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping (2016). These movies share a specific exuberance for comedy itself, a joy in delivering the next bit as soon as possible. Crucially, Schaffer never lets his films overstay their welcome, perhaps in an effort to distinguish himself from Judd Apatow and Adam McKay‘s “more is more” comedic styles.
Despite The Naked Gun‘s dedication to silliness, the script maintains consistency in its story and characters, which allows the jokes to land even harder. The only drawback to this approach is that it ends up feeling a little slight in comparison to modern films, comedy or not. The movie commits to the old showbiz adage of “always leave ‘em wanting more.” However, this is executed to the point where an extra 10 minutes or so wouldn’t have hurt the runtime, especially as it’s so clearly brimming with witty gags and ideas.
Perhaps The Naked Gun wouldn’t feel as brief if it weren’t such a pleasure to watch. Cinematographer Brandon Trost (Knuckles) refuses to throw away a vibrant visual aesthetic for the sake of making a comedy. Editor Brian Scott Olds keeps things moving at a breeze, too, so much so that the movie practically begs for multiple viewings.
The Naked Gun Suggests a Better Future for Studio Comedies
It’s important to note that The Naked Gun is far from a toothless comedy. Akiva Schaffer and his collaborators work their satire in with gusto, neither tiptoeing around anything nor crassly plowing ahead — this is a PG-13 comedy, after all, which is a rarity these days. Everything from megalomaniacal billionaires insecure in their masculinity (pick one) to Liam Neeson’s own problematic public history is brought up, proving once again that comedy is a great equalizer. It’s a testament to how fully realized the filmmakers’ approach to honoring the original Naked Gun movies is, as those classics famously didn’t shy away from injecting timely social and political commentary into their humor.
To no surprise, more adventures with Frank Drebin Jr. are teased, and it would be wonderful to see this team work together again. However, the immediate influence The Naked Gun (2025) should have on cinema is allowing studio comedies to have that equalizing effect on audiences again. Obviously, no two people have the same taste, but the last decade has seen the film industry try to cater to everyone’s predilections simultaneously. It doesn’t help that endless algorithms have had the same effect on the rest of our media. Many of us have been trapped in our individual bubbles of enmity for too long now.
It’s high time that we come together and laugh at that idiot Drebin while cheering him on, mainly because that kind-hearted fool is really all of us.
The Naked Gun hits theaters on August 1!
Release Date: August 1, 2025.
Directed by Akiva Schaffer.
Written by Dan Gregor, Doug Mand, & Akiva Schaffer.
Based on Police Squad! created by David Zucker, Jerry Zucker, & Jim Abrahams.
Produced by Seth MacFarlane & Erica Huggins.
Executive Producers: Akiva Schaffer, Pete Chiappetta, Andrew Lary, Daniel M. Stillman, & Anthony Tittanegro
Main Cast: Liam Neeson, Pamela Anderson, Paul Walter Hauser, Kevin Durand, Danny Huston, Liza Koshy, Cody Rhodes, CCH Pounder, Busta Rhymes, Michael Bisping, Eddie Yu, Moses Jones, & “Weird Al” Yankovic.
Cinematographer: Brandon Trost.
Composer: Lorne Balfe.
Production Companies: Fuzzy Door Productions & Domain Entertainment.
Distributor: Paramount Pictures.
Runtime: 85 minutes.
Rated PG-13.
