The Naked Gun (2025)

When the new remake/reboot/redux of THE NAKED GUN is funny, it's very, VERY funny. Sadly, those moments are few and far between. Most of the film left me with a mild smirk on my face and the sinking feeling that 75% of the best moments were in the trailer.

Let's look at what's absolutely right with the film.

Liam Neeson is perfectly straight faced as Frank Drebin Jr., son of my favorite bumbling detective of all time, Leslie Nielsen's Frank Drebin.

The original Naked Gun films are at the top of my all-time silly comedy heap, guffawing and pratfalling their way alongside the Austin Powers films to my stupid humor nirvana.

No one will ever match Nielsen's perfectly dry line readings in "Airplane", "Police Squad" and the original Naked Guns. But he had much better writing in those films. The hit and miss ratio of the rapid fire laughs was much higher than it is here.

Pamela Anderson is also perfectly cast as Beth Davenport, whose brother was murdered. In the long tradition of Bogart films and modern classics like "Chinatown", Beth arrives at our hero's office dressed to kill, a femme fatale clad in red who seduces Drebin at first glance. Anderson continues her big screen renaissance here, showing great timing as a comic foil.

Paul Walter Houser (I, Tonya, Richard Jewell) is a lot of fun as the son of George Kennedy's character. Like Kennedy, he's the loyal partner always trying to cover for Frank.

One of the best running gags in the film is Police Chief Davis (CCH Pounder) always asking everyone to be quiet because her husband is sleeping for "a big day tomorrow". This starts when Frank Jr arrives at her home to update her on a case but spirals off into rewarding territory.

The entire sequence with Frank interrogating a bank robber, perfectly played by Busta Rhymes, w/Frank showing his body cam footage to a room full of cops behind the one way glass is a blast. Frank keeps asking them to fast forward, but every time it stops, it gets funnier. Like the best bits in producer Seth MacFarlane's "Family Guy", it goes on forever and delivers huge laughs.

Another fun sequence is a completely out of nowhere love montage that captures the spirit of Nielsen & Presley's hilarious gags in the originals. This one involves a winter tryst at a snowy cabin that quickly devolves into a "Basic Instinct"/supernatural thriller movie with a horny snowman. It's laugh out loud funny, as is the sheer amount of coffee that the squad drinks.

Caffeine is the gift that keeps on giving.

Stealing directly from Austin Powers, Nielsen and Anderson also nail a scene where their silhouettes appear to be getting very freaky in the thermal imaging binoculars of bad guy Sig Gustafson, perfectly played by the reliably great Kevin Durand (The Strain, KIngdom of the Planet of the Apes). There's also some great Hollywood synergy in play, since Durand made his film debut in "The Spy Who Shagged Me"!

Bad guy Richard Cane (Danny Huston) serves up a decent foil to Drebin's madness, especially during an explanation of the P.L.O.T. device driving the story.

In the first two original Naked Gun films (the third was a distant third by comic standards) Jim Abrahams and the Zucker Bros served up a non-stop AK-47 of non-sequiturs, visual gags and wordplay that remains unmatched.

While Writer/Director Akiva Schaffer clearly has an affinity for the source material, he never quite finds the rhythm of the original films.

Much of the film just sort of plays out as mildly amusing, with Neeson holding your attention until the next good joke comes along. While certainly not a complete bust in the "Airplane II: The Sequel" mode, it's hard to think of this reboot as anything but the fourth best film in the series.

THE NAKED GUN fires too many blanks, with 15 minutes of funny and a whole lot of meh. It gets a C.

Fans of the OG Naked Gun will find some fun Easter Eggs, including that memorable Stuffed Beaver...